tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585Thu, 08 Jan 2015 02:16:08 +0000PACT ActTobaccoSenecaSovereigntyAkwesasneCHIPRACigarettesCuomoFETFloor TaxJodi GilletteNYSObamaRahnatakaiasTTBUS MailUSPSATFAmerican DreamAmerican Dream.BirthrightCattaraugusChiefsClintonCouncilCreationDeclaration of IndependenceDysterEagle FeatherEagle Feathers ProhibitedElectionsExclusivity ProvisionFederal AgentsFreedomGaming DisputeGillibrandGowanda High SchoolGraduationHaudenosauneeHigginsIRSIgnoranceIndigenous VoicesIngratesJohn KaneKahnawakeKaswenthaLTNLawyersLet's Talk NativeLiarsN2NN8ive2N8iveNYS GovernorNative American MonthNative BusinessesNative ConflictNative RadioNative RetailersNative StudentsNative to Native TradeNazi CrossNiagara Falls MayorNovemberOriginal InstructionsProclamationRacismRaidSchool BoardSenate ApologySeneca DealSeneca GamingSeneca Gaming CompactSlot RevenueSpitzerTaxationTaxesThievesThruwayTreatiesTwo RowUNDRIPUnkechaugVoteWampum BeltsWhite HouseWill ParryWolf's RunNative PrideThe culture, history, and philosophy of our past has to make it into our contemporary lives. Unfortunately, assimilation programs and generational whitewashing of our belief systems have dumbed down and created such a Disney version of who we are that there is a huge disconnect in our identity. This site is dedicated to taking the mystery out of our traditional beliefs so they cease to be beliefs at all and become understanding and awareness of what is real and what is natural.http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (John Kane)Blogger212125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-7071369291428038091Wed, 11 Jun 2014 03:28:00 +00002014-06-10T23:29:25.817-04:00WHITIE Compliant? You are Kidding, Right?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CHc5dSORvrQ/U5fMxefjvhI/AAAAAAAABuQ/8_kLPjKsjKQ/s1600/ETC+App.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-CHc5dSORvrQ/U5fMxefjvhI/AAAAAAAABuQ/8_kLPjKsjKQ/s1600/ETC+App.JPG" height="395" width="640" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On June 2, 2014, every "member" of the Seneca Nation of Indians (SNI) received a letter from his/her President announcing the launch of the Seneca Nation's new Enhanced Tribal Identification Card (ETC) program. The announcement of the program was couched in terms of preventing terrorism, strengthening border security and facilitating ease of border crossing/travel as well promoting a partnership between the SNI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through their <i>Memorandum of Agreement </i>(MOA).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The letter begins with the declaration that "the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) requires U.S. and Canadian travelers, including Seneca Nation members, to present a passport or other WHTI-approved document that denotes identity and citizenship when entering the U.S. at land or sea borders while traveling within the western hemisphere."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well let's clear up a few things right from the start. They say WHTI, I say WHITIE. And in spite of this letter's contention that these WHITIE-compliant ETCs are designed to "continue the protection of our sovereign rights," this could not be farther from the truth. This WHITIE requirement is a violation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and a direct abrogation on our sovereignty, as well as a violation of our inherent rights and laws of nature. Note that I didn't even bother to bring up their BS, double-talking, land stealing treaties. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are almost too many problems with this thing to cover it here, despite the fact there are really only five requirements for WHITIE compliance. But before I get into those, let me hit a few huge shortcomings of these cards and problems with the program. First, although it is stated pretty clearly, it’s easy to overlook the most obvious flaw — this will not help with travel into Canada or any place else. The WHITIE documents are for "entering the U.S...." The SNI Application for an ETC says it even more clearly — <i>"An ETC can be used...to return to the U.S. from Canada, Mexico and some countries in the Caribbean at land/sea border entries. However, Canada will not accept an ETC...to enter into Canada."</i> &nbsp;So these things are not for traveling from home. They are only to prevent DHS from denying our return.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The SNI application has significant violations of privacy and goes well beyond basic identification information:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">FULL LEGAL NAME, GENDER, HEIGHT, AGE, DOB, PLACE OF BIRTH, SSN, TRIBAL ENROLLMENT NO., CLAN, PASSPORT #, HOME PHONE, MOBILE, WORK, PHYSICAL ADDRESS, MAILING ADDRESS, MARITAL STATUS, MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME, LEGAL NAME OF FATHER, WERE THEY LEGALLY MARRIED?, CHILDHOOD RESIDENCE, EMPLOYED?, EMPLOYER'S NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE, LEVEL OF EDUCATION, COLLEGE(S) ATTENDED, DEGREE(S)/YEAR(S), CAN YOU READ AND WRITE ENGLISH?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The applicant also has to sign a Confidentiality Statement that acknowledges "legal penalties associated with... providing false information" yet is provided no confidentiality agreement from the SNI, DHS, U.S. Customs and Border Protection or whoever the WHITIE guys are. In fact the MOA doesn't even detail the use of this information but rather only mentions "validation of the Seneca Nation ETC information as specified in the separate service level agreement developed between the parties."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These are among some of the issues that jump off the pages of these documents without even getting into the WHITIE requirements. An expiration date seems benign enough but "mandatory facial image capture" sounds a little creepy. This is for compatibility with federal facial recognition programs and databases. The fact that, according to the MOA, the SNI clerk will retain this "capture" even if no card is issued just adds to the creepiness. Beyond basic requirements for counterfeit protection these WHITIE cards are required to have a Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) utilizing Optical Character Recognition technology and an RFID chip that will allow "unique identifiers" to be acquired; in the case of the RFID chip, without the card ever having to come out of your pocket. These Unique Identifiers will include digital photographs and other personal information and can be acquired by readers merely in your vicinity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But clearly the kicker in this whole program is the U.S. or Canadian citizenship requirement. The applicant MUST provide proof of "recognized U.S. or Canadian citizenship to be approved and the WHITIE card must display that citizenship prominently on its face. This requirement is essentially tantamount to saying to any of us that if we manage to step over one of the imaginary lines of the U.S. that we cannot return without a declaration of citizenship to the U.S. or Canada.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This clearly is not an oversight. In fact, in the SNI ETC Application the first note under the <i>"PROOF OF "RECOGNIZED" U.S. OR CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP"</i> is: <b><i>*Note that in submitting evidence of "recognized U.S. citizenship", the ETC applicant is not admitting to/accepting U.S. or Canadian citizenship and is first and foremost a citizen of the Seneca Nation."</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well that fixes everything. NOT! Now what member of the SNI legal team thought that adding this note in the application would negate the obvious implication of the WHITIE requirement? The MOA clearly states that "Nation staff shall in every case confirm that the applicant is recognized as a U.S. or Canadian citizen." <b><i>*Note that it does not say that the applicant may qualify for U.S. or Canadian citizenship or meet to requirements for such.</i></b> Again, this is not just a requirement for getting a WHITIE card but it's a requirement that it is actually stated on the WHITIE card.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I can't help but interpret this buried and anything but a legitimate disclaimer as an attempt to dupe the applicant. This is just devious. This is not a statement promulgated by the Seneca Nation to the U.S. State Department or anyone who would ever see these ETCs. And it certainly won't be among the card's "Unique Identifiers" broadcasting from their RFID chips. Where were these legal wizards, who clearly saw the problem, with their challenges to WHITIE in the first place? Where was just one of these overpriced consultants when these fear mongering, 9-11 obsessed, opportunistic WHITIE supremacists put these racist requirements together? No nation can de-nationalize another or force their citizenship upon a non-consenting people. These WHITIE cards are not Seneca Nation identification cards. They are federal IDs with tribal logos and enrollment numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We need to resist these WHITIE cards. The SNI boasts, in bold print in the letters addressed to "Dear Seneca Nation Member," (not Citizen), <b>The Seneca Nation is just the third Indian tribe in the country to issue ETCs.</b> In almost 5 years since this latest attempt at forced assimilation, only two other "Indian tribes" were gullible enough to go through with this?<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, let's hope the Seneca people, the Onondowaka, are smarter than their administration lawyers are or at least smarter than their lawyers think they are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/06/whitie-compliant-you-are-kidding-right.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-4582288540239174633Tue, 10 Jun 2014 01:11:00 +00002014-06-10T23:29:10.450-04:00The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave (Oh yeah, Americans and Canadians live there, too)<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_XePlTcesLU/U5fL01vfnpI/AAAAAAAABuI/5QY4Jm-zv1o/s1600/137123658989613903003101197_NorthAmerica_SplitSecondPortal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_XePlTcesLU/U5fL01vfnpI/AAAAAAAABuI/5QY4Jm-zv1o/s1600/137123658989613903003101197_NorthAmerica_SplitSecondPortal.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; font-family: &quot;Verdana&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; padding: 0in;"><span class="msoIns"><ins><!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--></ins></span></span><!--[endif]--></div><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith." — Felix S. Cohen, 1953<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is little question that what the white man found when he washed up on our shores was a free and fearless people. But rather than learn our ways and study how a people could live without kings, queens, courts and prisons or slavery, discrimination and class warfare, the church — the very thing that created many of these institutions and practices — was relied upon to spread all of it to a free world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Doctrine of Christian Discovery, which has plenty of foundation in the Bible, got its first shot as a stand-alone church doctrine with Portugal's invasion of West Africa in the mid-15<sup>th</sup> century. A pope's decree that a Christian nation could claim the lands and possessions of a pagan people and reduce them to "perpetual servitude" would begin four centuries of the African slave trade. In 1493, another pope would lay the foundation for all "Christian nations" to begin the rape of our own Turtle Island and secure the racist Doctrine of Christian Discovery as the law of the white man. In fact, it would be called the "White Man's Burden." <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Certainly, bits and pieces of our cultures, philosophies and traditions were borrowed when the need to shift colonial powers and authority would arise. But what was woven into the American fabric was only done so in rhetoric and not in practice. Laws of Nature, all created equal, governance by consent of the governed, inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; these not only sounded good, they were good. These along with the concept that individuals would be placed in the service of their people rather than as lords over them were, in fact, the way of our people, a way that allowed our people to thrive for thousands of years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The most consistent theme in the descriptions penned about the New World was amazement at the Indians’ personal liberty, in particular their freedom from rulers and from social classes based on ownership of property. For the first time the French and the British became aware of the possibility of living in social harmony and prosperity without the rule of a king." — Jack Weatherford, <i>Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Changed the World, 1988. <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the fake American history crumbles with more access to truth and our abilities to tell our own truths, many have begun to learn about the atrocities of the 500 years of the American Holocaust. And while acknowledgement of the wrongs and perhaps some attempts to right them is a good place to start, what's missed in all this is Felix Cohen’s warning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cohen's analogy of us to the miner's canary was not about saving the canary. It was about saving the miners. It is the white man with his "burden" and all that Cohen was warning. It is more than just an analogy to suggest that the atrocities committed against our people paved the way for the poison gases of Auschwitz and those now affecting climate change. Raping our children and our women are crimes against humanity but raping our Mother Earth is a crime against Creation. And it's not just all of man that will be affected but all of creation. But let's be honest, most of Creation will not care less about toppled buildings, crumbled roads and flooded homes. Only man — with his attempt to defy nature — is in real trouble when nature strikes back.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cohen realized that in our people — the treatment of and relationships with us — lay a barometer for mankind. The fall in the white man's "democratic faith" was based on an ignorant majority that could see its way to unspeakable crimes against the people closest to Creation and never realize that what kills the canary also kills the miner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, in reality, we are still free. It is the white man that fell to Christendom, with emphasis on the "dom" or domination. We have lost an inconceivable number of our people over five centuries to extermination, removal, assimilation and termination. We are still losing loved ones to poverty, alcohol, drugs and suicide. And we continue to lose many to assimilation, including those finding comfort in the colonial systems that continue to oppress our people. But we are not all lost.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are many among us that continue to say the Ohenton Karihwatehkwen. We acknowledge our relationship to Creation and bow to no man. We know we are free because our minds are free. We are not the caged canaries of the white man. We are a free people. And while many bound within the colonial systems poke those of our people, who were willing or succumbed to be their canaries, with their sticks, and begin to question their own fate, more and more will look to the free and the brave and desire to be among us. They'll pray that we are not those "merciless savages" Thomas Jefferson wrote about and that we still hold certain truths to be self-evident — even if they could not.</span></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-land-of-free-and-home-of-brave-oh.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-465534528551337172Sat, 31 May 2014 03:16:00 +00002014-05-30T23:16:24.893-04:0050 Senators to the Rescue<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U6TWmh8INXE/U4lJbD_BLXI/AAAAAAAABtw/j0KlIjZuVmA/s1600/Senate+letter.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U6TWmh8INXE/U4lJbD_BLXI/AAAAAAAABtw/j0KlIjZuVmA/s1600/Senate+letter.JPG" height="384" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) wrapped up its 13th session this week. Thousands of representatives of UN member states, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs) as well approved participants from academia and the media. The latter was how I got in. For two weeks hundreds of speakers offered statements and interventions, many of them from the Native people of Turtle Island. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These interventions offered a full range of complaints against Canada and the U.S. on issues including murdered and missing women, environmental crimes, land claims, land use, poverty and prominent racist policies very much still in full effect, including the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and the wholesale whitewashing of our children through the adoption agencies and policies of both countries. There was plenty of recounting of the past but for the most part all the issues were contemporary. Today! Now!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">UN member states, such as the U.S., Canada and many more, had representatives present. Those representatives had names you will never know, offering statements not worth repeating that amounted to little more than lip service to a UN event and focus that some countries wish didn't exist. No elected officials showed in New York; no senators or members of Congress, no ambassadors and certainly no one who really needed to hear directly from Native voices in an international forum.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now this is not to say that members of, perhaps, the most dysfunctional Congress in the history of the United States weren't making news on the BIG issues. No, in fact, as participants at the UNPFII were hammering out strategies on how to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) — essentially how to hold nation states to this minimum international standard — 50 United States senators decided to cut a page out of the New York Oneida Ray Halbritter's playbook.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These 50 senators — who I am sure were absolutely oblivious to the UNDRIP, the Permanent Forum and, most certainly, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery — decided to pull a publicity stunt to distract from their own failings. In about as partisan an act as possible, 50 Democratic senators decided to lend their names to a letter that attempts to correct what they view as "a matter of tribal sovereignty." I know, this sounds serious, right? And if I stop right here, you have got to be thinking, alright, they're scolding the states for violating our sovereignty or the tax department for unlawfully trying to fleece our people and businesses or even the State Department over passports or IDs. You might even be thinking they are admitting their failure to address land claims or correct any number of the other racist policies being addressed right then at the United Nations. But you'd be wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, these 50 elite politicians sent a letter to the NFL. And unlike Mr. Halbritter who bought his way into this 30-year debate over the Washington D.C. football team name, these guys just had a staffer stamp their name on a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. But again unlike Mr. Halbritter, who quite successfully deflected all attention from his "leadership", including his destruction of the Oneida land claim and selling out to New York State on gaming, tobacco, fuel and taxes by transforming himself into the "Washington R-word" slayer, these guys not only hurt the cause with lending their dismal approval rating to it, but they also come across as somewhere between hypocritical and just plain silly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First of all, why only 50? Why would the Democrats not ask a single Republican to sign? This just lends itself to the notion that it was a political stunt. Next, of course, is the timing. How could they ignore all that was happening and being discussed in New York at the UNPFII only to join in on what to call a bunch of men in tights? Another issue is the letter itself and the complete lack of responsibility these senators have for the U.S. having to tip toe around the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Step up. Read the damn thing! And stop violating it!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The letter also seems to ignore the fact that the team’s name has always been a racial slur. It was as racist 80 years ago as it is today. This gang of 50 suggests that because a racist NBA team owner recently got taken to the woodshed for being caught on tape saying very disturbing comments about black people, that it is <i>now </i>time for the Washington football team to abandon its racial slur moniker. It's almost as though the team name has just gotten noticed. Must be all that Oneida money. They could have at least been a little more honest and said that in light of the L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s crime and punishment that they can no longer continue to ignore the team name for the nation's capital.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The letter states, "This is a matter of tribal sovereignty." No, it's not! This name and all use of Native mascots and images are racist. It is not a violation of sovereignty. The state and federal governments do that — not sports teams. It is insulting and perhaps even a crime. If someone carries a likeness of RGIII's head in a noose into a football stadium, I could see someone catching a hate crime charge but the Philadelphia fan that takes an impaled "Indian head" to Washington football games and Chicago hockey games actually gets praised and put on TV. But even if it is a crime or a civil rights violation it is not a "matter of tribal sovereignty." That just tells me, again, how clueless these 50 senators are. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This letter also attempts to cast the Congress in stark contrast to the NFL which supports this racist slur by listing the great protections that the Congress has legislated for us. They seem to forget that every law they cited was to counter racist governmental policy and actually continues it by creating federal regulations for this "protection" rather than ever really recognizing our sovereignty. That is, by the way, "a matter of tribal sovereignty."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I agree with these senators that this team name should be changed and, in fact, all use of Native mascots should end. This all comes from the specific racism held against Native people and it is certainly emblematic of the racist policies of state and federal governments. But perhaps the Washington football team should keep the name, if only to demonstrate the blatant evidence of the racism that Washington D.C. — the nation's capital — still holds toward Native people. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A lot more than just a football team name needs to change in Washington. Respect Native sovereignty and stop the policies of assimilation. Oh, yeah. And change the name.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/05/50-senators-to-rescue.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-7721957062297146918Wed, 21 May 2014 14:17:00 +00002014-05-21T11:06:22.406-04:00We love what you've done with the place!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BO3acMjvE2Q/U3y1ScPJNgI/AAAAAAAABtU/4VV-FCxCQXI/s1600/badges.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BO3acMjvE2Q/U3y1ScPJNgI/AAAAAAAABtU/4VV-FCxCQXI/s1600/badges.JPG" height="462" width="640" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After spending the week in New York City attending the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and listening to dozens of speakers offering their interventions to the nearly 2,000 delegates and representatives, I have heard asked repeatedly a few burning questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first is: “What do want from the UN or the international community?” Well, that's a loaded question because there is what we <i>want</i> and what we <i>expect</i>. Plain and simple, many want action. For me, I come back to the warning about being careful what you wish for. I just want some attention paid to our issues and to shame those nations that continue to commit acts of genocide against us — plain and simple. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My expectations are low for anything to have much in the way of fast results. Death may be quick but survival is slow, particularly if we are talking about the survival of an entire people and simply not a generation of them. I give less credit and authority to those who are touted as leaders. I see this stage as an opportunity to produce credible testimony to impact the court of public opinion more than heads of state.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The speakers were from across the globe but the messages were repeated over and over again — loss of land, assimilation, abuse of women, health, poverty and environment. Land claims and environmental protections are the issues that concern the colonial powers most because these directly affect their bottom line as it relates to their economies. So the second question that is quick to be asked by the mainstream media is: “What do you want to see come from land claims settlements? This question is quickly followed up by: “Surely you don't want all the land back after all this time? Do you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some of the Indigenous people are quick to respond, "Oh, no. We wouldn't do that to you!" But they never quite get around to answering just what they would like to see as a resolution to long-standing battles over land. In 1922, the Chairman of the New York State Indian Commission, Edward Everett, wrote in his report to the State Legislature of the unlikelihood that Native people would have ever shared lands had we known what the white man would do with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ninety-two years later, as we observe economic collapse, aged or decrepit infrastructure and man-induced climate change, all I can say is that we love what you have done with the place. And this goes to the heart of another question: “What would <i>we</i> do with title to lost lands?” My answer begins with another question; this one to the people living and/or working on our lands. “How are you doing under state and federal oversight? Over taxed? Roads and schools in the crapper? Unemployment? Environment? How is that working for you?"<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Considering the bleak outlook for even the immediate future, I would not shy away from the assertion of Native stewardship and sovereignty on much of this conflicted land. But the fact of the matter is that many of our people never quite get past the racial bias at the core of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. And even with repudiation and clear condemnation from the international community, this remains at the foundation of U.S. and Canadian "Indian law" and is still being used by courts today. With no clear path for reclamation, most of our people never look that far down the road and certainly never develop comprehensive land use plans. Perhaps a higher level of discontent with the state and feds will pave the way for the "clean slate" approach to land use and just one or two examples of business success stories and higher quality of life, would certainly change the conversation. But these can't happen if we don't really have a vision for our future.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If one thing is learned from hearing so much testimony on Indigenous issues, it is that capitalism and imperialism got it wrong and buying into their failed systems for modeling our own is just absurd. We need to assert our presence, fight for our regulatory advantages and market these as building blocks to regional development.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am extremely disappointed to say that no one brought up trade and commerce as a specific area of concern for this world stage. Not one Native voice took the opportunity to cite the articles of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that specifically support our inherent rights to trade, commerce and our own economic development. The absence of that conversation only adds to the question as to what we are there for. If not there, where? If not then, when?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Minister of Human Rights Purifacione Quisinbine told me more than 20 years ago at the UN that we needed trade relations. That, she said, was the expression of sovereignty. She, like me, viewed treaties as weak, one-sided documents. Contracts and invoices represented equitability and it establishes relationships, not just between governments but also between peoples.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many good and important issues got well warranted attention on this world stage but the real life impacts to local and global economies caused by racist dogma cannot and should not be down played. Two weeks, once a year with a few more annual events thrown in is not enough to affect change. These issues have to be a drumbeat that becomes deafening with international attention and takes full advantage of the media attention that comes with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our small corners of the once vast lands which we tend to need to be a reminder to all those who are growing discontented with their lives — of what once was. We really don't like what you've done with the place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/05/we-love-what-youve-done-with-place.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-6793439779723663438Thu, 15 May 2014 17:03:00 +00002014-05-15T13:20:19.217-04:00Education and Conscience Versus Institutionalized Racism<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ShREMGr3AJ8/U3T23fu2v-I/AAAAAAAABs8/-hI9qdxgbAY/s1600/IMG_2126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ShREMGr3AJ8/U3T23fu2v-I/AAAAAAAABs8/-hI9qdxgbAY/s1600/IMG_2126.jpg" height="380" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, now that everyone can feel better about their battle and stance on unacceptable racism in the wake giving the old "what's for" to Donald Sterling, the racist owner of the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers, we can all go back to settling in with the institutional racism that keeps Daniel Snyder, the equally racist owner of the NFL's Washington R-word, warm and safe at night. I know "spic,” "wetback,” chink" and the R-word still can appear in print but if the N-word can't, then, in my book either can the R-word.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, it is institutional racism — the team, its logo, merchandise&nbsp; and name are trademark-protected, NFL-licensed and owned by a white guy. Not to mention the fact that most Americans are perfectly comfortable with the NFL franchise in their nation's capital bearing a racial slur for a name.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Now I won’t go off on another rant about how the dictionary defines the word or its history or even the damage the use of the word does to our youth. The simple truth is that a significant number of Native people are offended by it, yet most Americans are only offended by the fact that we are offended. That is to say, how dare <i>we</i> be offended by tens of thousands of mostly white people in red face, feathers, war paint, “costumes” and in an alcoholic stupor making a mockery of Native people? Not only is it not just this team or even just this sport. It's several teams in almost all sports. And it's not just the fans that are offensive. The opponents, sportswriters and TV producers can't resist the clichés or most outrageous comments or visuals. The Eagle's fan that brings the knife-impaled Indian head to the Washington games with “Red-Skin, Dead-Skin” written on the face, comes to mind.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">But that's not the really bad part. Granted, this is all plenty offensive and SHOULD disturb more than just a number of Native people but that is not my ultimate problem with institutional racism. A team name or a mascot may seem trivial but what it really represents is the notion that a dominant society can appropriate a name or an image or even a racial slur against a people and <i>normalize</i> it in that culture.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The first impulse is to suggest this misappropriation "honors" us. Of course, that falls flat the moment we claim that we don't feel honored or that we are insulted by it. Then we are told that it's just a team name and that it is NOT meant to represent us. The best part is when they tell us that we aren't <i>those people</i> anyway — that we are no longer those "grand kings of the forests and the plains." I have heard Native people criticizing the mascot issue told to “go back to the reservation and drink a few.” Some honor, huh?</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This acceptance of appropriating an image and then attempting to separate the affected people from it has consequences. It allows racist laws, policies and actions to continue year after year, decade after decade and century after century with no guilt and no real consequence to the dominant culture but with devastating impact on the affected people. Poverty, depression, suicide, alcoholism and little hope or prospect for the future is not caused by mascots. That's ridiculous! It's caused by the underlying racism.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">You might ask how can this be? Where does racism become institutionalized or normalized? The simple answer starts with the church. The Doctrine of Christian Discovery established the idea that a Christian people could claim the lands and possessions of pagan people, that a “godless” people could be subjugated to slavery and ownership. The courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court then codifies this concept into U.S. law and equates discovery with conquest. The establishment of the "ward-custodian" relationship draws a straight line from 15<sup>th</sup>-century popes to 19<sup>th</sup>-century judges. And when racism is both entrenched in church and legal doctrine that IS institutional racism.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This institutional racism accepts racist mascots, team names and logos. And this racism is government driven and societally acceptable. The notion that the dominant society owns us; and that the once proud, brave, free and noble savage is gone, sucked into American history, has become the false narrative that is American history. And what are left is a people deemed wards of the state and barely a resemblance to what America now claims for naming their weapons and sports teams.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">And what do wards of the state need? Obviously, just welfare, a check or a budget line. Wards of the state don't need an economy, they don't need opportunity and they certainly don't need United Nations protection. Not in the good ole USA or in Oh Canada.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Well, that's not the way we see it and, interestingly enough, neither does the rest of the world. After half a millennium of our resistance to racist church dogma and court bigotry the United Nations declared to the world in 2007 that:</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">"all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust."</span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) also includes 46 articles that form the minimum standard the member nations insist should be respected.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So while American and Canadian societies hang on to the last vestiges of their state-sponsored racism, even as they declare themselves morally superior to the rest of the world, they remain clueless to the social advances all around them.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We are not wards of the state. We have asserted our distinction, our rights and our sovereignty as we have begun to rebuild our economies. We fight for our lands and our resources. We have brought back our cultures and languages from the brink of extinction from acts of genocide and we are protecting the planet. We always knew we were right and had the right to do these things and now the rest of the world agrees with us. We know this fight is ours and it is a battle of education. But perhaps with international pressure we can open some minds.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Racism is ignorance. Mascots are racist and, more importantly, so are the policies that discriminate against and hold Native people down.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe Native mascots and team names must go but the racist policies are a bigger issue for me. I'd rather use the absurd racism that everyone sees to shine a light on what is hidden in plain sight. The singular concentration by some on mascots makes us seem shallow and superficial. And the worse thing that could happen would be for us to lose the battle to educate and enlighten people about racism yet force a name change or a ban on mascots leaving the dominant society and their leadership more entrenched in the racism with their harmful policies more firmly intact.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Today, both the U.S. and Canada are actively waging a campaign of forced assimilation against Native people in direct violation of the UNDRIP. Canada's Bill C-10 and various U.S. state and federal laws, regulations and policies are attempting to criminalize our trade and our people. Protecting our women and children and creating a future for our people require that we protect our land, assert our sovereignty and create hope and opportunity now and for the future.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: large;">I, for one, am prepared to use the UN or any international stage whenever possible to garner support and shame, if necessary, the U.S. and Canada into change. And who knows? Maybe we'll knock off an "R-word".</span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/05/education-and-conscience-versus.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-687998348092644975Wed, 07 May 2014 22:50:00 +00002014-05-07T18:50:54.829-04:00Lucky 13 for the UNPFII<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ib3EpbRfFLk/U2q4npok5gI/AAAAAAAABss/ZrfxHb544Q0/s1600/The_United_Nations_Building.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ib3EpbRfFLk/U2q4npok5gI/AAAAAAAABss/ZrfxHb544Q0/s1600/The_United_Nations_Building.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On May 12, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) will begin its 13th session at the United Nations in New York City. The session will run for two weeks and cover a broad range of topics.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The event is not open to the public. Only confirmed and registered NGO and IPO representatives are allowed to participate. However, as a UN accredited member of the media, I will be there, too. Yeah, that's right. Two Row Times columnist and radio show host John Kane will be there having the conversations that may or may not be welcome.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I'm not among the starry-eyed devotees of the UN. I am a skeptic although I appreciate the good intentions of such a body and even the nice words assembled in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). But intentions are not actions and the UNDRIP clearly identifies itself as the minimum standards that the world holds for the rights of Indigenous peoples. And while I understand the most common denominator for the nations of the world would almost have to accept a minimum standard, this Mohawk certainly doesn't. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, the U.S. and Canada, the last UN nations to conditionally endorse the Declaration, could not even accept this minimum standard at face value but rather suggested they could only support the "aspirations" of the document provided that its articles do not conflict with U.S. or Canadian law, which kind of misses the point. Uh...if your laws conflict with the UNDRIP, which they certainly do, as well as your policies, propaganda, altered history, religions, schools and state sponsored racism, then you obviously are not really supporting what the rest of entire world has endorsed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So why go? Simple. Shame.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have made it my mission to encourage conversations on Native issues. The more conversations that are had, the brighter the spotlight shines on those issues. If it is nothing else, I see the UN as a grand stage for conversations. But because the U.S. and Canada fail miserably by almost any standard for compliance with the UNDRIP and because they have no intentions of complying, our best recourse is the "court of public opinion" and shame on that grand stage. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the biggest mistakes we make in fighting for our inherent rights is treating them as gifts from our oppressors. Our rights are neither "treaty rights" nor are they UN Declaration rights. They are unalienable, inherent and original. Treaties may acknowledge them or even suggest protection of them but they do not grant them. The UNDRIP makes no claim to be the origins of our rights either. This declaration simply reiterates much of the UN Declaration on Human Rights with certain other obvious international standards such as "free, prior and informed consent" from people affected by the actions of another. The UNDRIP recognizes rights. It does not establish them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our job begins with asserting our inalienable rights based on our inherent sovereignty. The language in their treaties may be used to demonstrate and remind those that would violate our rights how many times they acknowledged their limitations and just how little we ever really ceded to them regarding our rights and liberties. The same goes for the UNDRIP. But unlike all those treaties that our people were coerced into, for access to our lands, the Declaration is not a <i>quid pro quo</i>or a this for a that. It is simply a minimum standard. But it is pointless if it is unknown or never cited.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So while our job begins with asserting our rights, it is also incredibly important to specifically cite how and where our rights are being violated within the context of the UNDRIP and our inherent sovereignty. We need to make the violators of those rights painfully clear of the international standards they are ignoring and alert the international community of the violations and impacts, as well. There are 46 articles and a preamble loaded with affirmations, acknowledgements, concerns, beliefs and specific points of recognition to which we should hold the non-Native governments and do so with every intent of leveling shame and embarrassment on these U.S. and Canadian hypocrites.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The opening day of the UNPFII, among other issues, is scheduled to cover sexual health and reproductive rights. With more than 1,000 missing and murdered Native women in Canada alone and the highest rate of childbirth mortality rates on the continent, how can the U.S. and Canada not be shamed?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second day will focus on the impacts of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. This can't be just a study of past atrocities but must include the ongoing ones, as well. The U.S. codified this racist doctrine in 1823 and it is still cited to this day to diminish everything from claims to our stolen lands to our right to trade and develop our own economies. This can't just be about condemning ugly history as though it's all better now. It isn't! The suggestion that our "discovery" by Christian nations equated to conquest is not just wrong today. It was just as wrong when the house of cards that is "federal Indian law" was built on it then. The UNDRIP should assist us in securing more equitable remedies, not just for past grievances but current conflicts, too. The U.S. and Canada can keep their "houses of cards" but if they don't want it toppled they should keep us out of it. There is no shame in fairly and respectfully resolving conflict but any nation claiming superiority based on race or religion should be truly embarrassed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Redress, land disputes and land claims, Indigenous children and Indigenous youth, and actual implementation of the UNDRIP are other scheduled topics for discussion. And I will take every opportunity I can to bend the ear of anyone that will listen to address the most critical issues to our people — poverty today and bleak prospects for the future.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the access to sacred sites in the world can't fix poverty and self-esteem. All the special days, decades and declarations the world over will not secure a future for our unborn faces. We don't need world courts or international sanctions. We need real international relations that support our trade, our travel and our autonomy. We need interface between the voices that call for our right to be respected and protected, and those whose laws fly in the face of those calls.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's see what a little "Let's Talk Native...with John Kane" at the UN stirs up.</span></span>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/05/lucky-13-for-unpfii.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-9204182500313339126Wed, 07 May 2014 22:38:00 +00002014-05-07T18:38:26.888-04:00No Honor Among Thieves or Chiefs<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have to begin my column this week by stating up front that I am Haudenosaunee. I support traditional governance based on the Kaianerehkowa and a culture grounded with the Ohenton Karihwatehkwen (Words Before All Else) and the Tiohateh (the Two Row Wampum). I must emphasize that it is traditional governance I support rather than "traditional government." <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are those who would suggest that the Haudenosaunee have existed with all these things firmly in place in an unbroken testament to our strength and durability as a people. I wish that were true. I wish our people had continued to reject the Bible and the booze. I wish they always held our women in the reverence that we like to claim. I wish we protected and preserved our lands and language for our future generations. I wish we maintained the concepts of governance by the people and the understanding that people who were recognized for the best characteristics were placed as honorable servants to their people rather than rulers placed above them. But most of these wishes would bring me back several hundred years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We lost our way several times long before the first white man ever appeared before us. Our Thanksgivings are reminders of those times and of the time we came back together to right ourselves. The Kaianerehkowa represents the last time wise men among us reminded us who we were and what we were created for. In it are the descriptions of the characteristics we were to strive for. No, it didn't say don't drink, gamble or dance. It placed honor on a man who proved himself as a husband, a father and an uncle. What that means should be self-evident. The Kaianerehkowa lays out the process to maintain peace and resolve conflicts. It lays out checks and balances and defies any notion that any of us have authority or higher standing than any others of us. It also made clear that all those things that went into the Kaianerehkowa should be retold and recited each year in every Haudenosaunee community and recited at a gathering of all 49 families of the Haudenosaunee and any new families that joined to enjoy the peace under the Kaianerehkowa every five years.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This basic call for maintenance through constant education and "removal of the dust" that accumulates with time surely could have prevented where we now find ourselves. This summer such an event is planned for the Seneca community of Tonawanda and at this point there may be no community in more need. But Tonawanda is certainly not the only community in need. Between assimilated elected councils with pitiful voter turnout and no connection to our culture or what defines us, and councils of "chiefs" that claim to be "traditional" with a twisted view of their authority or privilege, our communities are barely recognizable as Haudenosaunee.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have seen unspeakable corruption and behavior out of men claiming to be chiefs while loyalists chant "honor the chiefs." As these men hide behind the banner of being "traditional" they discriminate against some and disregard others while consolidating power, wealth and recognition as royal families. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could review much of the fairly recent ugly history that would explain the mess that is now the Oneida Nation of New York and the current power struggle over leadership, control and federal recognition in Cayuga that involves "traditional" chiefs, their lawyers and reliance on the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Our ways? The Kaianerehkowa? Certainly not! But one of the most blatant abuses of power today by those that claim to be "traditional" is, indeed, in Tonawanda.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">Tonawanda is a small Seneca community that claims to be "traditional." The resident population is less than 500 with half of those being non-Native and the majority of the Native population being non-Tonawanda Seneca, meaning only about 20-25 percent of the residents are "enrolled" Tonawanda Seneca. There is a relatively&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">sizable</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;Christian population with notables that have historically&nbsp;included men like Ely Parker who actually served as a chief on the Tonawanda Chiefs Council. While there is one modest Longhouse and quite nice tribal offices, there is also a&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">sizable</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;church within the community as well as&nbsp;churches attended by residents off-territory. The contemporary notion that Tonawanda is a "traditional" community has drawn deep lines separating people along family lines, occupations, religious beliefs and even gender. There exists a sense of superiority for these 'traditional" leaders and their loyal followers over the vast majority of the rest of the residents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">None of this could be more exemplified than by the current situation where a Tonawanda Seneca business owner, out of favor with the "chiefs," dies and despite a well documented will that clearly laid out his intent to leave certain significant assets to his Tonawanda Seneca daughter, has those intentions usurped by the deceased's greedy brother, mother and, at least, certain Tonawanda chiefs. Literally, the uncle and grandmother conspired to defraud a young woman out of her inheritance from her father and ultimately they are assisted by corrupt chiefs to pull it off. As it stands today, both the home, valued at over $3 million, and the businesses that have generated significant wealth over the years, have been seized by the chiefs and it is being done under some guise of "traditional" law or custom. The plain and simple truth is that the daughter of the deceased has been determined arbitrarily as undeserving of the inheritance and that is cause enough for a corrupt and dysfunctional "government" to do as it likes against whomever it wishes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is nothing in any legitimate or noble culture, traditional or otherwise, that would deny a man the right to leave his daughter assets that she would otherwise have the right to own or receive. And there is nothing in the Kaianerehkowa that would remotely suggest or empower a chief to seize an inheritance. This case is simply a theft by those that believe they are above the people and what is decent and right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It will be a singular moment of reckoning when men guilty of such a crime have to sit before all of us at a Kaianerehkowa recital knowing the abuse they have inflicted even as that very abuse is being condemned before all. I will sit in anxious anticipation of those days with only one hope — that they will reflect on their actions and correct them before we all come together.</span></span>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/05/no-honor-among-thieves-or-chiefs.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-6878071482637821473Thu, 24 Apr 2014 20:11:00 +00002014-04-24T16:11:20.175-04:00It's not Just the Pipe…It's What's in It<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JA5dHxsYV9M/U1lvTLx6oEI/AAAAAAAABsc/ala8YeGm63k/s1600/Image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JA5dHxsYV9M/U1lvTLx6oEI/AAAAAAAABsc/ala8YeGm63k/s1600/Image.jpg" height="267" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Reject and Protect call to action this week in Washington, D.C.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As this column hits the press, thousands are gathering in Washington, D.C. to take a stand against the Keystone XL Pipeline. During a week that a decision was expected out of the Obama Administration on this issue, the Reject and Protect call to action will set up camp near the White House and tell the President to reject the pipeline. As it turns out, an announcement just came from the White House that the Administration has decided to kick the can on this decision for what seems like the tenth time.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Whether this decision was made to take the wind out of the sails of this demonstration or somehow is part of some other political strategy, or if it is just more D.C. dysfunction, is always hard to say and harder to get anyone to admit to. But, regardless of the decision not to make a decision, it’s important that a message about this is made loud and clear.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the crazy things about this whole discussion is the lack of media coverage the actual tar sands oil extraction gets. Americans and Republicans, in particular, love to keep this conversation just about a pipeline; and you can be absolutely sure that FOX News and the Tea Party right will not be rushing to the aid of any ranchers, cowboy hats or not, that stand in the way of big oil profits. When Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy stakes his claim against the U.S. government — even at gunpoint under the clear threat of violence — cries of government oppression and praise to him as a patriot ring all over the political right.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But as this movement rages on — the movement that started on the Native lands in Alberta that are being raped by interests from China to Texas and, of course, a whole lot of Canada — the debate on the U.S. side continues to stay relegated to just a conversation about a pipeline. For most of us opposing this new "junkie's vein" for oil, the absence of the pipeline is simply a bottleneck to slow the environmental travesty that is tar sands oil extraction. Of course, the pipeline absolutely presents a significant environmental risk on its own and, worse yet, the entire justification sold to the American public is a lie. It's not about jobs; the pipeline will ultimately only produce about 40 permanent jobs. It's not about energy independence; it is still foreign oil. It's certainly not about securing a more politically correct supply for the good deserving people of this hemisphere; none of this "oil" is intended for American or Canadian consumption. It is all going to China.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now don't get me wrong. Alberta, Canada, the Koch brothers and a whole lot of "Big Oil" and all those others invested in tar sands oil stand to make billions. But the American and Canadian public? Nope! Just seized land for a dangerous easement from Montana to Texas and a wasteland the size of Florida will be left in Alberta.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The pipeline will endanger the Oglala aquifer, one of the largest on the continent, and join the ranks of all the other leaking pipelines that make a train wreck of tanker cars look like a soupy puddle from a dropped ice cream cone compared to what a busted or cracked pipe can do. And make no mistake, they all do or will leak. And all those who clamor about how a new pipeline will be safer? Well, NEWSFLASH! This isn't replacing old pipes or rail or truck or even tanker — it is adding to them.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That is really the point for many of us. Beyond the lies and propaganda associated with the Keystone XL Pipeline is the plain and simple truth that this pipeline validates and facilitates the environmental travesty that is tar sands oil extraction. You can put all the lipstick you want on this pig, but it's still a pig. As are all those that are unconscionably destroying what was only recently pristine land that supported a beautiful people dependent on it.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The fact that no American would ever let the destruction occurring on Native lands in Alberta to happen in their back yards is really just hypocrisy. And the fact that an American President can keep sidestepping exactly just what and where from the proposed "oil" is coming is just dishonest.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now why do I keep quotation marks around the word "oil"? I do it because technically it's NOT oil. It's bitumen. It's worse than crude oil from an environmental standpoint and to add insult to the inevitable injury it’s because it's not even technically crude oil. There is an exemption from paying into a clean-up superfund that would normally come from crude oil passing through a pipeline in the U.S.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It’s easy to draw a line connecting Native people to environmentalism. But for us this isn't about a preference or a social or even a philosophical stance. It is about our identity and how our land defines us. I know many identify with us and share this view. But as more and more of us come together on these and other environmental issues, don't forget our place in this debate. It has now been said by many that the fight for environmental justice starts with Native people. I would suggest that it is sustained with Native people and will end with us, too. With international calls for our "free, prior and informed consent" on all issues with implications for our future, Indigenous peoples globally are gaining confidence and recognition in these and other fights. But none of us will wait for the international community to catch up. Our resistance is today and we will do it without FOX news, armed resistance or the Tea Party darlings.</span></div><br /><div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Regardless of approval of this pipeline, our battle is against the destruction at the source of this issue. We will fight tar sands oil extraction however it is transported. Ultimately, our position on the issue will be more and more validated by others but until then many will label us not as Bundy patriots but as terrorists — and worse.</span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/04/its-not-just-pipeits-whats-in-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-9093699456738603248Wed, 16 Apr 2014 03:40:00 +00002014-04-15T23:40:20.474-04:00Who You Calling Formerly Colonized?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nNs1MRG2pU8/U037lW8vWMI/AAAAAAAABsI/U7bo5dVIglc/s1600/Sepia+JK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nNs1MRG2pU8/U037lW8vWMI/AAAAAAAABsI/U7bo5dVIglc/s1600/Sepia+JK.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;">During the past week I have had more conversations about "decolonization" than I have had in my whole life. As I mentioned in one of my Facebook conversations, I am not entirely comfortable with the expression.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Clearly as Native people continue to carve out our existence with the dominant societies, cultures and politics around us, we find ourselves getting caught up in the next word, policy or social theory of the day. Sovereignty became almost synonymous with Native rights. Self-governance and self-determination also began rolling off the tongues of every "tribal leader" and "Indian expert." Oh yeah, and let's not leave out “nation-to-nation” and “government-to-government” relations. Those were good ones.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;">For me, the "trust relationship" with a complete lack of the "trust" part makes that one problematic for me but that one was easy to call. This decolonization thing was a little more troublesome for me. I mean, I get it and the whole "decolonize your mind" slogan does have a nice ring to it but for me it still didn't feel right.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I was finally able to put my finger on it today when my good friend Kerry Hawk Lessard used University of Michigan Associate Professor of Psychology and American Culture Joseph Gone's definition in our discussion. Gone uses decolonization to describe </span><i><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">“the intentional, collective, and reflective self-examination undertaken by formerly colonized peoples that results in shared remedial action.”</span></i><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Well, there you have it. Decolonization felt to me a little too much like the abolition movement and Gone confirmed the problem for me. Just like abolition was all about addressing and ending the very successful dehumanizing institution that was American slavery, decolonization is about remediating the problems associated with "formerly colonized peoples" as though the act of colonization was both complete and successful.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I understand that colonization is a clear and well-defined concept, but at its core it is about claiming land. Just as the Doctrine of Christian Discovery really had nothing to do with converting the pagans into Christians but rather converting their land to Christendom, colonization was less about colonizing people and more about taking their land for the colonizer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">So having said that, I certainly acknowledge that almost all of our lands were stolen, defrauded, claimed and/or swindled from us for THEIR colony and most Native communities, on either side of the imaginary line (U.S./Canadian border) are led to believe their lands are held "in trust" for them by the colonial powers. But the keyword here is "most" — not all.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">One of the little-known facts about Native people is that 70 percent of them do not live on Native lands and most of the remaining percent that do, live on lands that the colonizers claim to hold the title to. But that is not the case for the Haudenosanee territories I have lived on. Although our ancestral lands have been greatly reduced, all of the peoples of the Haudenosaunee still retain a portion of those once vast lands and they OWN it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">The lands of which I speak are not under U.S. or state title. And they are not "held for the use and enjoyment" of our people. Our people OWN them. So to say it more clearly and in the context of this discussion — our land is not part of their colony. <b>The land we still occupy has not been colonized.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Now I am not suggesting that we are the only people who can claim to have not been colonized but I would say that if they can't claim our lands then they can't claim us. I will also state for the record that I have never ascribed to the notion that the U.S. and Canada hold our lands for us. But I will say if you view yourself among the formerly colonized peoples then the first step you need to take is to assert your connection to your homeland. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Beyond the inability of the colonial powers to render us landless, I maintain that there is no legal basis to claim our subjugation or cite just when our clearly recognized sovereignty was ever transferred to them. It is laughable that the foundation of U.S and Canadian "federal Indian law" is still ONLY based on papal bulls from the fifteenth century. In 1823 when the U.S. codified the Doctrine of Christian Discovery into U.S. law via <i>Johnson v. M'Intosh</i>, Chief Justice John Marshall literally suggested that Native sovereignty was diminished upon discovery. And in the wake of Marshall's legal dicta on this ruling there began this absurd assumption that discovery could be viewed as tantamount to conquest.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Of course, even with this weak rationale building the foundation for the imperialistic belief in Manifest Destiny, neither the U.S. nor the state of New York ever claimed to own the land we retained. In fact, even when attempting to relocate the Seneca during the Removal Act era, the U.S. was forced to include language in its offer of lands west of the Mississippi that even those lands would never be claimed by the U.S. or incorporated into any state (an offer that was nonetheless rejected). As late as the second half of the nineteenth century, New York State still acknowledged in its State Judicial Reports that Seneca lands were not part of the state, that the Seneca were not represented in their legislature and that the state could not tax them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I have many reasons for refusing to be considered a formerly colonized person. I maintain that there are many of us that are among a long line of people who have resisted and rejected subjugation and the assumption of colonization. So excuse me for not embracing the decolonization movement. My sovereignty is a birthright. That whole unalienable rights thing? That came from us. The concept of seven generations doesn't just suggest that we consider the effects of our actions on those unborn faces — it prohibits and denies any legal and legitimate authority of anyone to sell out their future generations. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">I can't decolonize. That would suggest that I was colonized in the first place. I wasn't and I'm not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/04/who-you-calling-formerly-colonized.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-5207568494915097349Wed, 16 Apr 2014 03:16:00 +00002014-04-15T23:34:40.030-04:00The Unwritten Rules of the Cuomo Cabal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HKXx7yUnHb8/U03196YkF3I/AAAAAAAABr4/HyU1lmejmeI/s1600/andrew-cuomo-980.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HKXx7yUnHb8/U03196YkF3I/AAAAAAAABr4/HyU1lmejmeI/s1600/andrew-cuomo-980.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Three years ago a couple of "Let's Talk Native..." regulars and I made the trip to the Albany to try to get some straight answers to a couple of simple questions. Matt Hill, Paul Delaronde and I met with New York State Senator George Maziarz, Republican from the 62nd Senate District of New York, to see if a State Senator could get an answer to a question that the State's tax department refused to give us. We sat with the Senator and first queried him on his position on Native-to-Native trade and the State's authority over our commerce and our manufactured goods.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Senator Maziarz made it very clear where he stood on the issues. Despite legislation that the State legislature had recently passed that was to shut down State-licensed wholesalers from continuing a 30- year practice of selling unstamped (untaxed) cigarettes to Native retailers, he felt strongly that the State had no authority to interfere with Native-to-Native trade and he was in full support of the trade we had established with Native-manufactured product.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The problem that we encountered was that we could not get a straight answer out of the Governor's office, the State Attorney General's Office or out of the State's Department of Taxation and Finance clarifying the State's legal, political or regulatory policy on Native-to-Native trade or on Native- manufactured goods. They flat out refused to tell us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So we figured, surely a State Senator could get us an answer. The Senator agreed to let me work with his staff to draft a letter to Thomas Mattox, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance requesting clarity on the State's position and intent. While at the State Capital, I also decided to pursue support for answers from across the political aisle and asked State Senator Timothy Kennedy, Democrat from the 63rd Senate District, if he would sign onto such a letter. He agreed. So now we had Senators from both political parties pressing for a public announcement of a policy that by law should have been clear and unambiguous in the first place rather than a military secret.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The letter sent from Senators Maziarz and Kennedy on May 16, 2011 stated clearly that:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i><i><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"It is our view that the State should not pursue an effort to collect taxes on Native Brands because such an effort would be contrary to the sovereign rights of the Native American Nations, and would be a severe blow to the Native retail economy." <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The letter proceeded to make a specific and quite reasonable request.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"[W]e request that you provide clarification to us as soon as possible and in writing. It is very important that all of the citizens of the State of New York and their elected representatives know what the intention of your Department is with regard to the collection of State taxes on Native Brand cigarettes and tobacco products."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To my surprise I learned that even the guys who are credited with making these stupid laws couldn’t get answers about their implementation or covert exaggeration.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">More than a year later I convinced Senator Maziarz to follow up on his prior unanswered request. This inquiry was made in light of an absolute refusal to respond to his first letter and action from the State Attorney General attempting to stop Native manufacturers from shipping, selling and distributing products to Native territories. This "cease and desist" order came in the wake of a court ruling by the New York State Supreme Court ordering the State to release a seized truckload of Native-produced cigarettes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Senator Maziarz on June 27, 2012 again wrote to the Tax Commissioner:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"In my view, the recent court case acknowledges that Native Brand cigarettes that are produced and sold on lands owned by Native Nations constitute commerce that is Native to Native. As such these transactions cannot (and should not) be regulated and taxed by the State of New York. To do so would be contrary to the sovereign rights of the Native American Nations, and have significant negative impact on the Native retail economy."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And the Senator once again restated his request:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Although the NYS Supreme Court case starts to provide some direction on the status of the taxation of Native American cigarettes, there is still much uncertainty in this area. Consequently, we request that you provide written clarification to us as soon as possible."<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As we approach three years from the original request there is still a refusal by the State to provide a written explanation of their policy or intent. This is not rule of law. Hell! The lawmakers themselves can't get an answer from these extortionists.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his new get tough policy/propaganda against cigarette smuggling. He announced the formation of a 13-agency task force dedicated to keeping illegal cigarettes out of the State. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background: white; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“This new law-enforcement strategy will help to crack down on these illegal cigarette sales and capture those smugglers who seek to evade the law and rob the state of the revenue it is rightly owed,” Cuomo said.</span></i><i><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The problem is that neither the mob boss nor his minions will say where the Native tobacco trade fits into this conversation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A recent study by a non-partisan tax policy think tank, the Tax Foundation, revealed that almost 57% of the cigarettes consumed in New York State are brought into the state illegally. Nothing in the Tax Foundation's report suggests any of this percentage includes Native brands or Native sales nor does it imply that Native sales are illegal or considered smuggling. The report clearly assigns the vast majority of "smuggled" cigarettes to Virginia and three other low-taxed states that do not affix tax stamps to cigarettes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So there we have it — New York State policies so covert that the actual lawmakers from either party are denied access while the “Boss” chases his tail on what is real revenue leakage and where his revenue is actually leaking to.<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-unwritten-rules-of-cuomo-cabal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-6571999083970709065Tue, 08 Apr 2014 02:51:00 +00002014-04-07T22:51:14.794-04:00Stirring the Ashes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4dLj2XLX-MY/U0Nj-obb8OI/AAAAAAAABro/d3wU521NZbg/s1600/glowing+embers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4dLj2XLX-MY/U0Nj-obb8OI/AAAAAAAABro/d3wU521NZbg/s1600/glowing+embers.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the biggest challenges for any people is broad participation in the issues that affect everyone. And when you stop and think about it, there is very little from the smallest ripples in a family to major calamities in a community that occurs without impacting others. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The notion of "mind your own business" or "let someone else handle it" has become commonplace in many cultures. As we observe the flaws of some of these other cultures and societies there are those among us that would like to think the Haudenosaunee lived in a utopian society where conflict and controversy could never find a home. We speak of "the good mind" as though our ancestors never had bad thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, this was not the case. And a proper inspection of concepts captured in our language and our ceremonies make it clear that both were developed to provide the necessary lessons to avoid repeating the mistakes of those that came before us. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Their wisdom is demonstrated in the timeless metaphors drawn upon generation after generation, not only without losing their meanings but also actually gaining in significance as time goes on. "Fire" is an example of this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A fire in its most basic form serves as a symbol for family. A fire provides warmth and protection. With its light wisdom and learning are provided and the soothing, almost hypnotic effect of dancing flames and glowing embers is something unmatched in nature.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But beyond the family, the fire represents a council. In fact, the fire is a symbol for our right of assembly. We refer to our process of deliberation as an issue being handed across and around the fire. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And while the fire and the tending of it is a significant part of ceremony, council and the very foundation of our "Longhouse," there are some very basic concepts associated with fire that are either missed, ignored or are interpreted far too narrowly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Poets, songwriters, storytellers and holy men have crafted messages and sermons with images evoked from "stirring the ashes." But one of the most compelling and pragmatic cultural connections to this expression is neither spiritual nor loaded with spooky connotations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As it was explained to me, one of the concepts captured in the act of stirring the ashes is specifically associated with inclusion and encouraging participation. The very act of stirring ashes and poking around in the almost dormant embers of a fire livens up those embers. By exposing them, those not quite extinguished embers are made to glow with their own fire and even those that seemed to have lost their fire can be re-ignited.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of our people are like those dormant or extinguished embers. While the hot flames flash and dazzle with flamboyant energy, many settle in to the quiet places allowing our fire to be fed primarily by the hottest coals among us. By settling into the ashes, we preserve our thoughts and opinions, protecting them from scrutiny. And in doing so we often believe we retain the right to criticize quietly, away from direct engagement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The concept of stirring the ashes gives energy and life to those hiding from responsibility when their contribution to our fire is needed most. Stirring the ashes lights those up that may feel neglected as well as those that wish to be. It is a symbol for inclusion and participation. Yet as much sense as the image makes in this application, it is not widely held or shared.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am extremely fortunate to have people around me that continue to share and explain these things. And because of these special relationships, my responsibility becomes to continue the conversations offered to me and to encourage this very concept of inclusion and participation above all else.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is through these conversations that like-minded people gather and those that are compelled to action can genuinely know that their actions are either supported or condemned. We need not fear or ignore the darkened embers. We need to stir the ashes to find the latent sparks among us. There is no real consensus on any issue if the light of so many is left buried in the ash.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the same way that we remove the dust with a seagull wing from the knowledge passed down from those that came before us, we stir the ashes of our fire to remove this dust from the knowledge quietly held right beside us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those of us strong in their — and our — convictions, we should welcome those voices rarely heard. And if they challenge us, then such a challenge should be seen as an opportunity to teach those who have not as yet been engaged or to learn from those waiting to become engaged.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A bed of hot coals is a strong foundation for a fire just waiting to flare. And that sea of glowing embers is far more powerful than any single match, torch or beacon. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need participation far more than we need leadership. Strong leadership is only needed with weak-minded people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The great men and women who came before us knew all this and that is why concepts and expressions such as "removing the dust" and "stirring the ashes" were specifically captured in our language and incorporated in our stories and ceremonies. These are not phrases coined for prayers to the sky world but rather concepts developed for teaching and avoiding the mistakes common to the nature of man on Earth.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/04/stirring-ashes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-2673715151110951610Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:50:00 +00002014-04-01T08:50:34.863-04:00Embrace Our Sovereignty or Continue the Genocide?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">"The most consistent theme in the descriptions penned about the New World was amazement at the Indians’ personal liberty, in particular their freedom from rulers and from social classes based on ownership of property. For the first time the French and the British became aware of the possibility of living in social harmony and prosperity without the rule of a king." – Jack Weatherford, "Indian Givers"<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">Almost immediately, all that was known about society, government and social order had come into question for the Europeans who washed up on our shores half a millennium ago. Social order without a hierarchy? Equality? Even between genders? Unalienable rights bestowed to all by Creation?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">In the absence of a system born out of beliefs in gods, kings and emperors, an entirely different philosophy developed and shaped the culture of the Onkweh Onweh. As a result, some very foreign concepts were embraced by the newcomers to our lands. Our view of relationships, respect and commitments to our future and the future generations were ultimately understood and welcomed by settlers. Our concepts of liberty and equality would represent such a departure from what was known and, in many ways, at the core of the problems with their "mother land" that they would become not the reason but the rationale for a Declaration of Independence for settler colonists from the rulers of their homelands.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">Of course not all of our concepts were embraced and many that were would be altered beyond recognition. But the fact of the matter is that a nation was born out of our lands and our values, both of which were previously unknown to the white man. The reason our lands and philosophies had such value was because they had not been contaminated by European ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">It was separation — time, distance and space that would allow a people to develop with such distinction from the norms of Eurasian societies. And now, centuries after the cultural exchanges that would lead to the creation of nations that would make claims to world dominance, democracy and global standards for human rights we, the original people, the Onkweh Onweh, fight everyday to maintain our distinction and autonomy. Five hundred years of atrocities that earn the label of the American Holocaust has not resulted in the successful genocide of our people. And our fight is not the fight of armed insurrection. It is not an insurgency of terrorism or vindictive vengeance. No, our fight is peaceful but strong. We resist the controls of the dominant societies around us. We utilize our sovereignty as an asset and exploit the regulatory advantages we fervently refuse to concede.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">But why the fight? Do the U.S. and Canada really consider us a threat? If so, to what or to whom are we a threat? Even as we put our sovereignty to use in our economic development, our economies serve your people! Our gaming, our retail, our manufacturing — all of it depends on the patronage of Americans and Canadians. And how do your people feel about our sovereignty? They support it and, in many ways, depend on it. Our economy employs more of your people than our own. Our economy doesn't just count on your citizens as patrons; we purchase from your vendors; we contract with your suppliers and we hire your contractors. So even as we fight U.S. and Canadian police, government agents, politicians and courts for the elements of our sovereignty that provide the distinction and regulatory advantages necessary to sustain our still limited economy, it is our solid and loyal relationship with your own people that provides our market and much of our supply.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">The problems with our economy are many. For one, it's narrow. For another, it is always under attack. If it weren't under an unlawful constant assault it wouldn't be so narrow. Gas, gaming and tobacco are not the only things our people, our lands and our sovereignty are good for. We have much more to offer and, frankly, none of us are comfortable being dependent on two vices and reliance on the oil industry. Nor are we comfortable with them being our legacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">So here is my point of the week. If our autonomy and distinction could create a philosophy that could change the world centuries ago when change was slow, what could genuine respect and support for our sovereignty and autonomy produce today? In a world where the very regulatory advantages we fight for are sought after for outsourcing, why trek halfway around the globe for what's in your own backyard? Our sovereignty is not a threat to anyone's national security. But it may be a proving ground for the new economic models that everyone is desperately searching for. Back off and see what a clean slate in the neighborhood can do. No need for bureaucratic economic development zones, White House "Promise Zones" or New York State "tax-free" zones. No bipartisan bickering over legislative fixes. Just simple respect for the sovereignty that predates your very existence.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-latin;">The Haudenosaunee was the model for what would be. We need the respect and support for our autonomy and distinction today so we can be the model for what will be. Fighting us slows down our development but it won't stop us. Fighting us is a battle against the will of your own people. Embrace our distinction and abandon your genocidal tendencies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/04/embrace-our-sovereignty-or-continue.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-7559467254153410977Tue, 01 Apr 2014 12:49:00 +00002014-04-01T08:49:17.929-04:00Republican-Democrats, Liberal-Conservatives…What's the Difference?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u2MkwBObcfk/Uzq1dH_nFsI/AAAAAAAABrY/F3t2Awjmicg/s1600/alg-obama-cuomo-jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u2MkwBObcfk/Uzq1dH_nFsI/AAAAAAAABrY/F3t2Awjmicg/s1600/alg-obama-cuomo-jpg.jpg" height="475" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although I cannot embrace the rape of the planet and obscene support for the rich lords of capitalism that seems bound to Republican DNA, there is no question that some of the worst actions and most aggressive policies our people have seen toward our trade and commerce has come from a Democrat as Governor of New York State and a Democrat as President of the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Racism and the arrogant ignorance behind it seem to know no bounds. Neither race nor political party affiliation affects the moral compass or the conscience of elected officials in the American system.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was under David Paterson, Democrat and New York State's first black governor that the State pushed through enough of its legal hurdles to shut off its State-licensed wholesalers from selling tobacco products to Native retailers. This plan was put into motion by Governor Mario Cuomo almost 20 years earlier and seemed to be held up by his successor, Republican Governor George Pataki.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now don't get me wrong, we also clashed with Pataki. But this guy changed his stance on attacking our commerce and got elected two more times in spite of it. In other words, caving in to those his predecessor planned to attack militarily under "Operation Gallant Piper" cost him nothing in political capital.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But after 10 years of relative peace and even a huge growth of Native tobacco retail due to remote sales (Internet and mail order), back came the socially responsible Democrats. Democrat Eliot Spitzer got elected as the tough "Sheriff of Wall Street" with every intention of shutting us down but resigned in disgrace after a prostitution scandal. So that's how New York ends up with its first black (un-elected) governor at the same time the U.S. gets its first black president.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, one would think that Democrats with even some personal insight on racial discrimination would be "sensitive" to Native issues. Not a chance. Obama killed that retail growth of which I spoke by signing into law the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT Act), outlawing our remote sales and killing 3,000 jobs in the process. No one said a word about the job losses. No one said a word about killing the revenue flow into Western New York or the wiping out of the Master Settlement Act payments that the State was getting from our sales. The PACT Act was pushed through as an anti-terrorism bill and that sealed the deal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paterson tried to choke off supply by pushing through the dormant work of Mario Cuomo and then handed it off to the next his successor, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo "The Younger" came into office with more than just the normal dismissive attitude toward Native issues. He came in with a chip on his shoulder. He proved that the only thing worse than two Democrats named Obama and Paterson were Democrats named Obama and Cuomo. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While, nationally, many Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) recognized tribal leaders were falling at the feet of the first President "of color" every chance they got and a fair number made sweetheart deals with New York State's "Prince Andrew" over gaming dollars and land claims, record numbers of armed raids by federal agents and seizures by state authorities piled up under this Democrat rule. Law suits, indictments, tax assessments and even a multi-million dollar federal sting operation over tobacco; not guns, not drugs, not funding terrorism but tobacco, has been the hallmark the Obama/Cuomo era.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I said from the start, I am certainly no fan of the Republican right. I'll never understand how middle class (and below) white Americans can support these guys under the ridiculous belief that they stand for freedom. Freedom to subject an entire nation of people to the prison of consumerism that destroys the planet and only makes the rich richer is not freedom. But the Democrats are right there in defense of American capitalism, too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have come to the conclusion that American political party affiliation is all just window dressing. So whether the Republicans want to play the arrogant, know-it-all, abusive dad under the cloak of conservatism or the Democrats want dress up as the whining, let-me-take-care-of-you, incompetent mom in her liberal house coat, we aren't playing. We aren't your children, your wards or your subjects.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As more and more Americans and Canadians see the mess of things their government officials have made and continue to make, the colonial powers may be in for trouble with their own people. The "Great Experiment" in democracy is failing as is the free market and the global economy. While many patriotic Canadians and Americans talk about resisting government abuse, we have been doing it for 500 years. Politicians come and go, as do empires and wealth. We have lived here for tens of thousands of years. You should never start a fight you can't finish.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/04/republican-democrats-liberal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-6183552301514876563Wed, 12 Mar 2014 01:47:00 +00002014-03-11T21:47:14.789-04:00"Sovereignty is not our Defense. It's what we Defend!"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MVyF-XF3vEM/Ux-8a_LwvkI/AAAAAAAABrE/5bGhfkTBkAI/s1600/2blockade090608.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MVyF-XF3vEM/Ux-8a_LwvkI/AAAAAAAABrE/5bGhfkTBkAI/s1600/2blockade090608.jpg" height="499" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On my "Let's Talk Native..." radio show on Sunday, March 9, I announced my new campaign. No, I am not running for office. My campaign is about truth telling and clearing away false assumptions about what the United States and Canada believe they have reduced us to — namely, their subjects.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In spite of the lop-sided "deals" and, more often than not, fraudulent acts committed by Europeans and their descendants to gain access to the lands of our children, the characterization that we are dependent on them is false. The very existence of the U.S. and Canada depends on their claim to a land base. The fact of the matter is that they are completely dependent on lands that we allowed them to occupy — but that occupation was and is conditional. And neither of these "colonies" has been released from the debt of those conditions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the egotistical view of Christian Europeans, the Earth was created to be subdued and owned by man. With that assumption and with their own view of such things, treaties were entered into with a people who by and large were willing to help a poor and wretched class of humans that washed up on their shores. In later years, these white men, cloaked in their religion, would attempt to claim certain ownership of lands under decrees of their church and the tenets of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery. But in spite of the U.S. Supreme Court's attempt to codify this racist and unlawful policy that literally says a Christian people can just claim ownership of the lands of pagans, the early American leaders crafted law after law acknowledging Native lands and our exclusive ownership of those lands as well as the distinction of our autonomy and sovereignty.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is no reconciling on the attempt by the U.S. or Canada to create some uniform body of "federal Indian law" with the realities of their own inconsistencies, ambiguities and outright lies. The crumbling foundation of the concept of federal Indian law is built upon religious and racist dogma addressed in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">&nbsp;<i>"all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust." <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are not wards of the state. The U.S. and Canada are not our custodians, our guardians, our trustees or our superiors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those who choose to be victims of the American genocide are certainly free to do so and the U.S. and Canada are happy to oblige. But for those of us who continue to not just survive but actually fight back, we do so to affect change and not just to find a kinder and gentler master. We fight and defend our sovereignty for our children and those unborn faces to come and also to transform those victims among us into survivors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I spend the next several months exposing the absurdity of state, U.S. federal, provincial and Canadian federal policies and showing how these policies are born out of blatant racism with a clear objective to eliminate our claim to distinction and autonomy, I ask that others join me to advance this campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My goal in defending our sovereignty is to turn the tables on those who attempt to criminalize us or assert unlawful controls over us. Let them produce their documents defending their positions. Name the event that transferred our sovereignty to them. Give us a date, a time and a place. When and where was our consent given to their governments "instituted amongst Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed?" When did we concede to subjugation?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even the self-righteousness of the U.S. and Canada cannot give them the right to legislate or adjudicate away the sovereignty of another people. It's fine to cry "rule of law" with mouse eyes but we have been watching with the eyes of the eagle from a thousand feet in the air. We see where justice stops and where law is used as a tool or a weapon against us and others. If man's laws are needed at all, they need to be built on a foundation of truth and integrity and must be just to be valid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When New York State claims our trade must abide by their laws with no legal basis for making such claim and when the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms sends armed and masked agents into our lands to bolster the State's claim, this is not justice. This is not rule of law. This is manipulation of law. This is secret oppression — undeclared policy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been almost three years since two New York State Senators (Senators George Maziarz and Timothy Kennedy) asked the Commissioner of New York State's Department of Taxation and Finance to disclose and provide in writing what the State's policy was on Native-manufactured goods and Native-to-Native trade. Commissioner Thomas Mattox has refused to accommodate this request even as the New York State Attorney General pursues lawsuits against Native manufacturers. These are not the actions of governments and agencies demonstrating just powers. These actions are political and discriminatory, and based on policies hidden from the view of those affected, their own citizens and their own lawmakers.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hold on. It is going to get nasty around here. This ends only one way — with our sovereignty intact!</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/03/sovereignty-is-not-our-defense-its-what.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-5988082257814089479Wed, 05 Mar 2014 15:15:00 +00002014-03-05T10:49:52.674-05:00Economy? We Don't Need No Stinking Economy!<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cft1Lfc2g7I/UxdHjg0lSQI/AAAAAAAABq0/tegRxrMuqwk/s1600/Smokeshop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cft1Lfc2g7I/UxdHjg0lSQI/AAAAAAAABq0/tegRxrMuqwk/s1600/Smokeshop.jpg" height="418" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I haven't weighed in much on Canada's Bill C-10 issues but in the overall scheme of things it is no different than any of the others on the long list of anti-Native laws, regulations and policies that Canada and the U.S. have attempted to impose on our people and lands for centuries and, of course, this includes their provinces and states, as well. It all boils down to an attempt to control, marginalize and criminalize our people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is particularly ironic that participation in a trade industry that has been ours for thousands of years — actually introduced to their ancestors by our ancestors — has been under attack since the moment we began realizing any significant economic gain from it. But the attempt by the U.S. and Canada to deny this inherent right is not the only egregious act by two of the world's biggest hypocrite nations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kidnapper, hostage holder and pedophile John Rolfe (d. 1622) of Pocahontas fame took the first steps to bastardize our tobacco by commercializing the product for the European market. Philip Morris, Lorillard, R.J. Reynolds and others finished the job by turning tobacco into nicotine delivery systems praying on chemical addiction for market security. Governments and government officials raked in billions with taxes, fees, surcharges, settlements, political contributions, tobacco lobby perks and campaign contributions. Lawyers saw the same; and both tobacco and anti-tobacco lawyers got rich and famous. And while all this money was being spread, Big Tobacco continued cranking out cigarettes. These guys played every angle possible to keep up demand, supply and distribution. They even courted small, almost insignificant Native smoke shops and the low or no-tax environments we operate in. Anything for sales. But that all changed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Soon the unholy marriage between Big Tobacco and small Native smoke shops bore an offspring that would destroy the bliss — Native-manufactured brands and products. Soon the very companies that used our people to skirt state and provincial law were writing the federal legislation to snuff us out of the business. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now don't get me wrong, even with Big Tobacco kind of in our corner the U.S. and Canadian governments were hell bent on not letting us build an economy on this or anything else. A few Big Tobacco executives even got prosecuted for bending rules and breaking laws in dealing with the "illicit reservation tobacco trade." But once these guys lined up with the top cops it didn't matter where tobacco originally came from since Team USA and Team Canada were going lie, cheat and steal to keep us out of the game. We were now <i>terrorists</i> or at very least funding them. What ensued were stings, seizures and set-ups of all kinds, including creating sell-outs among Native businessmen and in tribal councils.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But our shops continue to operate and Native brands and Native-produced generics continue to roll off our shelves. Criminalizing our businesses has not stopped them. It has just made it easier to call us criminals. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And while the tobacco sideshow keeps everyone distracted, Canada and the U.S. eye what's left of our lands and resources all the while calculating how they might separate us from both. Even as most territories wallow in poverty and the majority of Native people live ghetto lives in the cities where they have been removed, coal, gas, oil and tar are raped from our lands leaving destruction that would make George Washington and John Sullivan proud. While people freeze to death in their homes due to the very extreme weather caused by the world's "fat takers," diamonds, minerals, lumber, water and energy resources are stripped from our lands leaving wastelands behind as well as cancer, tainted fish and wildlife, polluted water and a stench in the air. And this while poison seeps out of our own Mother in radioactivity and other seen and unseen dangers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost no economic benefit ever makes it back to the people from all this exploitation and the little that does only seems to validate or encourage the practice. More jobs are created for cleanup of the inevitable disasters associated with raping the planet. But, of course, real cleanup is impossible. The fact of the matter is that Americans and Canadians are neither the users of these energy resources nor are they beneficiaries of their revenue either — except those Americans and Canadians that pocket the money on the sales to China. The U.S. broke records last month exporting more than a billion gallons of crude and petroleum products in a single week ending on February 21. So all the hype about domestic supply and energy security is as big a lie as the whole "Tobacco and Terrorism" scam.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">China has invested billions of dollars into the tar sands oil extraction in Alberta and it's not to build a better Canada. It is to pull billions and billions of dollars out of our Mother and do it at the greatest rate and scale possible. The majority of Americans and Canadians are ignorant about the issues at stake. Even in the liberal state of New York a recent poll with more than 10,000 online participants had over 51 percent saying "Frack Away," obviously believing the hype over the jobs and benefits to be had destroying the Earth. The same goes for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Far too many Canadians and Americans have bought into all the lies and propaganda associated with this international crime against humanity because they have been duped into believing they will somehow benefit from the dirtiest oil on the planet flowing from Canada to the Texas Gulf so it can be sold to China.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is not irony. This is criminal. While the U.S. and Canada legislate to prevent any economy from developing or meagerly continuing on Native lands they rape the land they stole from us or are stealing from us. This is all being done while they lie to their own people and destroy the ground beneath their feet. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not a fan of what the white man did to our tobacco but I would rather be a criminal farmer, even of tobacco, than a lawful destroyer of the planet.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/03/economy-we-dont-need-no-stinking-economy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-3502567617317789379Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:25:00 +00002014-02-26T09:25:11.560-05:00Remove the Dust for our Survival<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I really like the expression, "Remove the Dust." Its most basic meaning evokes the image of sweeping away the dust accumulated over years of neglect from our wampum belts or any other reminders of our shelved knowledge. We use it as an expression that is generally associated with maintaining our culture. But at some point the line between the survival of our culture, distinction and autonomy and just plain survival will be brushed away like a line drawn in the very dust we seem covered in now.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We may not feel the need to learn survival skills for the short time many of us have left before we go home to our Mother, but the incredible short-term benefits and long-term needs should be clear. It's fine to talk about conservation and consuming in moderation, but how is it even possible when people are told every day that the very fabric of the "American Dream" or of the "Global Economy" depends on consumer confidence and consuming far beyond any ability to pay? And I am not just talking paying in dollars; I'm talking about the debt incurred on society, mortgaging our health and bankrupting the planet's resources.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Survival is about returning to reality — to real life. It is about understanding our place in Creation. This is where we find out whether the centuries of indoctrination into whatever belief systems you follow were real or BS. Has your religion or culture or, more importantly, your interpretations of them, prepared you to understand your place in Creation? Or are you simply relying on prayer and tobacco burning to be the problem solver? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Learning survival skills isn't just about doing with less. It is about realizing what is important. If removing the dust does not help us reassess our priorities then perhaps we need a better broom. If we hold sacred a planting ceremony but don't plant and if we perform our harvest ceremony but don't harvest then I say we have missed something. We need to give sincere thought to the lives we are living now if we have any hopes for our children and grandchildren. We need to rethink what a home is, what a family is and what a community is. To be Haudenosaunee or <i>Rohtinoshoni</i> does not mean you have a longhouse. It means you are of the way of the longhouse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is fine to speak of sovereignty and standing to defend it. But our word is <i>"Tewatahtawi"</i>and it means “we carry ourselves.” When do we fight not just for the right to carry ourselves but fight and prepare to actually do the carrying?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The world is changing around us. Capitalism and industrialization have driven our environment over a cliff. All the conservation in the world isn't going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. However, the world isn't coming to an end. This isn't about fear mongering or predicting the apocalypse. It is about acknowledging the changes that are coming.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Removing the dust isn't just learning the songs and the ceremonies. It is learning what they acknowledge and taking the time to, indeed, acknowledge those things. Maybe we don't need to grow our own food and build our own homes but the time is now to begin to learn or relearn. We cannot expect to build that skill set at the drop of a hat. That genetic memory and knowledge handed down from those before us evolved over time. Much of that knowledge can still serve us today but if we don't get our hands in the dirt now we will be ill equipped for the changes that are coming. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Empires rise and fall. We have seen plenty in the 500 years since European contact. We saw tremendous changes in the 10,000-plus years before that, as well. The descendants of those that came long before us are neither entitled to a sustainable future nor exempt from the fury of a changing earth. We call ourselves <i>Ohnkwe Ohnwe </i>and we say it means “real” or “original” people, but it is more than that. It is a description of a human being who stays true to the world in which he lives. He has a future that is connected to his past. He is real forever.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">Archaeologists</span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">&nbsp;and anthropologists speak romantically about the ancient civilizations of the Americas and hypothesize about where they came from and what became of them. Yeah, we did the same things other cultures did, too. We built cities and monuments. We created religions and disparity. We waged war against man and Creation. But then we stopped. We learned. We removed the dust. As we cast off the false reality we created, the true <i>Ohnkwe Ohnwe</i> once again came through. It didn't happen by accident or by divine intervention but by planning and acknowledgement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of those we now call our own people will not change their ways. They will march arm in arm in their sycophantic delusion with their capitalist overlords or "Trustees" off the economic and environmental cliff they have created. Choices will be made and continuing down the same path is a choice. If we don't like what we see in ourselves when we remove the dust, then Creation, the same teacher that brought wisdom and knowledge to those that came before us, will teach those willing to learn once again.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/02/remove-dust-for-our-survival.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-3509328312627213171Wed, 19 Feb 2014 03:24:00 +00002014-02-18T22:31:33.067-05:00Did I hear you say 10 percent of the U.S.’s energy resources are on Native lands?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">My Let's Talk Native column for the February 19, 2014 issue of the Two Row Times</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PmnPGfsbRGI/UwQlFyRBtWI/AAAAAAAABqk/-j8w5TFsBRA/s1600/Brian+Cladoosby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PmnPGfsbRGI/UwQlFyRBtWI/AAAAAAAABqk/-j8w5TFsBRA/s1600/Brian+Cladoosby.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now wait a minute. Tell me, how do any resources on our lands get tallied up as a percentage of someone else's resources?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, let me tell you how…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First, it happens through blatant theft. That’s theft pulled off through fraud and extortion...with a little religion thrown in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then we get the same theft continuing with a penny on the dollar's worth thrown at an impoverished people and/or their corrupt leaders to, somehow, legitimize the theft.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then we get to where the bought and paid for among us wheel and deal our resources away for a fast buck with those claiming to be "tribal leaders" calling it economic development or worse; calling our resources not ours at all but rather the resources of the nation that has stolen almost everything we hold dear and essentially pledging our resources to make America proud of us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the annual State of Indian Nations address delivered by the National Congress of American Indian’s (NCAI) President Brian Cladoosby there were repeated references to what "we as Native people" mean to the United States. He boasted about the revenue that Washington State receives from "tribes," including his own Swinomish Tribe. And during all of this talk of our place under the skirt of America the Beautiful was the reference that 10 percent of the "Nation's" energy resources lies within our territories.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now this isn't just a problem of misplaced or misspoken possession, it is a problem of intent. Even as many of us draw a line in the sand, not just tar sand, on mineral extraction and environmental degradation, we have those among us who are surrounded by lawyers, lobbyists, consultants and investors making million-dollar deals to sell off every barrel, every ton and every cubic foot of anything worth having.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the biggest factors on negative environmental impact, profitability and investor interest are scale and rate. How much can be extracted and how fast? Of course, throw in a little "no one lives there but a small number of marginalized people and a reduced requirement for real oversight” and bingo! You've got the next hottest thing on the reservation since...well, since bingo.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This brings me to the place where I have to point out the obvious. Now, I get it about who and what these "tribal leaders" are. The federal government gives them their "recognition" and, therefore, their authority. And while <i>their</i> jobs may be to find a cozy spot within the colonial power that uses them, mine is not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feminist activist Nikki Craft said, "The task of activism isn't to navigate the systems of power with as much personal integrity as possible, it is to dismantle those systems."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And our task as survivors of the longest attempted genocide the world has ever seen and defenders of our future generations and protectors of our Mother is certainly not to lie down with our abusers and negotiate a comfortable spot in a system that uses everything up for profit. Our job is not to protect the American or Canadian “Brand" or deliver "Made in Canada" or "Made in the USA" to the global market. And it is not our job to look the other way while greed rips into our lands to support "Made in China" either.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we do choose to pursue a use for these resources they should be used to produce as much value to our communities and our people as possible. Raw materials should not stripped, piped and hauled out of our lands to quench the insatiable appetites of those that would destroy the planet for profit. Our small populations and the small areas of land we still control should not only have a secure energy future but also the scale and rate required for our own needs and desires should never exceed what the environment can support. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yet for all the vast amount of energy resources boasted about by Mr. NCAI President, we have our own people freezing to death not on forced marches or out in the wilderness but in their homes. Freezing to death in the very lands that Mr. Obama and the French President chuckled over just this week as they shared funny little stories of the Louisiana Purchase and what a great deal it was while Mr. NCAI President looked on honored to be among them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So as the energy debate and the fight to block the Keystone XL Pipeline and tar sands oil rages on we need to look at those faces close to us — not just industry moguls. We need to shake them out of the delusion of subjugation and the lure of the American dream. We need to be a beacon of hope, not just for our own but also for the ever-increasing number of people looking to us to help break the status quo.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A gas well in Seneca territory should not be filling the pipeline for the American utility companies. It should be supplying Seneca people. It should be producing heat, electricity and automotive fuel. The people should not be sucked dry by National Fuel to pay back investors funding the contamination of Seneca lands and risking the health of the people and life of the region.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The same should be said for coal, oil, gravel, water and trees on every one of our territories. Selling off our land by the truckload, pipe or rail is still selling out our future generations. And that is a system of power that needs to be dismantled.</span></span>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/02/did-i-hear-you-say-10-percent-of-uss.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-1414040399858775564Wed, 12 Feb 2014 13:31:00 +00002014-02-12T08:38:23.558-05:00A Tale of Two Cases<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By John Kane - from the February 12, 2014 issue of the Two Row Times</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last week two stories about the ongoing battle by New York State and the U.S. federal government against the Native tobacco trade hit the papers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the state case (<a href="http://www.mpcourier.com/article/20140204/DCO/702049802">http://www.mpcourier.com/article/20140204/DCO/702049802</a>), the government prosecutor joined with defense attorneys in a motion to dismiss felony charges against two men attempting to transport tobacco products from Mohawk territory to Seneca territory in March 2012. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">District Attorney Mary E. Rain told the St. Lawrence County Court Judge Jerome J. Richards that she had determined there was not enough evidence to prosecute.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Among several issues that Rain described as representing "all kinds of problems with this case" was evidence she found in the case file that was favorable to the defendants. She specifically cited emails to and from the former District Attorney Nicole M. Duve dated August 14, 2012 where "She indicated in the emails that the Mohawk tribe was being singled out and local law enforcement was being unjust."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the federal level, the Kansas City Star reported that a "New York company admits guilt in contraband cigarette case" (<a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/06/4803205/new-york-company-admits-guilt.html">http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/06/4803205/new-york-company-admits-guilt.html</a>).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aaron Pierce, a Seneca and former candidate for the President of the Seneca Nation was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in a large federal sting operation ran out of Kansas City between June 2010 and January 2012. His company, AJ's Candy and Tobacco LLC is the "New York state tobacco wholesaler" that is the subject of the article.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to the Star, the</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"> "wholesaler pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Kansas City to trafficking contraband cigarettes and agreed to pay up to $1 million in fines, forfeitures and restitution."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The dismissal of the charges in the New York State case demonstrates what many of us have suggested for years about the discriminatory nature of law and law enforcement in the state. But even with the sweeping of this case under the rug, there is still a failure to address any state policy, regulation or law that clearly establishes any legal authority to criminalize the Native tobacco trade. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In May 2011, I worked with New York State Senators George Maziarz and Timothy Kennedy, both from Western New York, to make a formal request the Commissioner of the State's Department of Taxation and Finance to state clearly and in writing exactly what the state's policy was on the Native tobacco trade and Native product, in particular. That letter and follow- ups to that request remain unanswered but clearly lead authorities away from Seneca territory and resulted in the concentration by State authorities on Mohawk territory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The federal case involving Aaron Pierce and AJ's Candy and Tobacco raises more questions than it answers. The identity question for Aaron Pierce alone could fill volumes but the core question here, too, is whether there is any clear and legitimately established policy, regulation or law that criminalizes Native trade? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The crux of this case is the Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act (CCTA). This law characterizes at a federal level, any cigarettes found in a state requiring a tax and stamp indicating the tax has been paid without a stamp as contraband with very specific exceptions, none of which include Native trade, Native product or Native people and lands. So what is created is an unclear federal law that uses unclear state law to criminalize Native trade that supports the economy on lands that both the state and federal governments know is not theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So whether "AJ" pleads guilty to a crime, cooperates with state and federal authorities to get convictions on him and others or buys his way out of his fear of jail or a fight for sovereignty, does not mean a crime has been committed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The question that I have for "AJ" is how can purchasing unstamped cigarettes in Kansas City for sale on Native lands be a crime between 2010 and 2012 while AJ Candy and Tobacco buys and sells unstamped Native brands everyday – including today? Is a pack of Marlboro's on the shelf of a Native smoke shop contraband while a pack of Seneca's is not? Where is that written?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where is the line? Who draws it? And who is willing to defend it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My immediate assessment of these cases was there could only be one of three explanations here. Either this is completely arbitrary with no real law behind it with the state and feds making it up as they go along. OR they are conceding that Native product in certain undefined areas can be traded by some people under a different set of undefined laws from non-Native product.&nbsp; OR the entire Native tobacco trade is criminal and they just don't know what to do about it or when to do it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I honestly think it’s the first one but would love to hear them admit the second.&nbsp;</span> &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-tale-of-two-cases.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-9181815266482675982Wed, 05 Feb 2014 21:24:00 +00002014-02-05T16:24:11.548-05:00Latent Racism and Blatant Racism<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Previously published in the February 5, 2014 issue of the Two Row Times</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am never quite sure if there is a real difference. "Latent" is defined as not visible or dormant. Well, to those of us who feel the effects of this sentiment, almost nothing is missed or 'not visible.’ Even the dormant talk in their sleep.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is probably a third category that is simply ignorance. Of course, all racism is borne out of ignorance and when ignorance continues to feed racism, it is deplorable and condemnable. But the ignorance I am talking about is almost innocent. It is not meant as an insult or to be demeaning but is, rather, a function of not knowing or being oblivious to embracing racist ideas or practices with no ill intent. That being said, someone who is not racist certainly can do and say racist things. The difference is that when it is pointed out, they can see it, recognize it and make the proper adjustments.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The defining point for the latent racist is when they are called out on it. Now this goes beyond the guy who says, "What do you mean? I have a black friend" or "What do you mean? I like Indians."&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">To me, there is almost a unique category of racism that pertains to Native peoples. As I mentioned, by and large most non-Native people are oblivious to us. The words 'Indian' and 'Native American' invoke visions of Pilgrims or cowboys and Indians from the movies. We aren't viewed as a threat or to have any impact on them whatsoever. But among this vast non-Native population an underlying racist attitude has been quietly, but no less insidiously, planted. The trick to all this, in my opinion, is raising awareness without pushing them over the racist cliff.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">We see this with the mascot issue and any time we stand together. When the dominant culture around us feels threatened even with the idea of losing something as meaningless as a team logo, that line gets drawn.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">An Edmonton newspaper had to shut down its Facebook page in the midst of the Idle No More movement because of the ugly and overwhelming level of hate that erupted there. Every mainstream print, TV/radio and online media outlet that addresses the mascot issue and uses a forum for comments has at least half the comments filled with insult and hate. And depending on their political leaning, a whole lot more than half. This isn't even a real issue in and of itself; it is merely a demonstration and a symbol of the unique racism held toward Native people.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It is tough to judge the real level of this racism. Clearly, many remain silent on the issues and in doing so are complicit in fostering this sentiment. The loudest and most well funded voices will always get heard above the silent majority but I can't help wonder where that silent majority really falls on this.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">It’s great to hear people say that they never realized how offensive an expression or an image is and to be genuinely regretful for having been a part of promoting such things. I truly believe most people do not harbor ill will toward Native peoples, but certainly plenty do.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many of those plugging up social media with hate speech are not the latent racist variety awakened from their dormant state but are simply the blatant racists, happy in their ignorance and wearing it proudly around their necks. These aren't just the guys or gals who struggle with generationally embedded racism; no, these are the ones on a mission to recruit more racists and advance social tensions and even violence. Michele Tittler and her attack on a 13 year-old Native girl wearing a "Got Land?" hoodie to school comes to mind. But it isn't just the lunatic fringe at home with their computers and the Internet that concerns me. There are also guys like Frank Parlato, the owner of the Niagara Falls Reporter, a small newspaper in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Every week, this little man publishes his racist views targeted specifically at the Seneca. He makes his case with lies and half-truths and actually suggests that the non-Native people of Niagara Falls are living under apartheid to the Seneca people. While he and his views may be insignificant, the fact that he generates enough ad revenue to print 20,000 copies weekly of this nonsense begs the question as to how widely held these racist views are and how effectively is he spreading them.</span></div><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe it is our job as Native people in the media, as few as we may be, to enlighten people and provide the information to those willing to receive it. I, for one, feel well received by the non-Native community as I share my thoughts and views. I don't think promoting Native sovereignty, autonomy and distinction is the same thing as promoting racial tension or hostility. There are vast arrays of beliefs, philosophies, religions and behaviors that I do not embrace, some right within my own communities, but I feel no need to attack those that subscribe to these different views or condemn them unless they truly intend to do harm and use those views for justification or cause. As strong and animated as my own rhetoric may become, it will never be my intent to promote hate or violence or to express my freedom at the expense of others.</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 10px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">For those harboring blatant racism, I hope much of it is generational and will die with them. And as for the latent racists, well, let's just hope they continue to sleep it off.</span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/02/latent-racism-and-blatant-racism.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-257473019737241540Sat, 01 Feb 2014 05:37:00 +00002014-02-01T00:37:34.013-05:00Start Spreading the News<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5hoBVFM-tJc/UuyH3zF3GqI/AAAAAAAABqU/t21_Ha91jOk/s1600/FVIR+Header_edited-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5hoBVFM-tJc/UuyH3zF3GqI/AAAAAAAABqU/t21_Ha91jOk/s1600/FVIR+Header_edited-1.jpg" height="200" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past 11 years that WBAI-FM 99.5 in New York City has been airing “First Voices Indigenous Radio” (FVIR), the show's host and executive producer Tiokasin Ghosthorse has slowly turned his weekly live one-hour radio show into an international broadcast with re-airings of this program on 45 stations in 15 states and one Canadian province. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tiokasin has built a following of loyal listeners and set a standard for what could and should be expected when a Native voice is given an opportunity to be heard. He strove to provide a platform and a voice to Indigenous issues globally and has, indeed, accomplished his mission.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But 2014 has provided other opportunities for Tiokasin and he has decided to step away from hosting for a bit. Last week I traveled to New York to appear as Tiokasin's guest on FVIR. There it was announced that I would be stepping in as Interim Host for Tiokasin while he goes on a sabbatical to pursue various projects including work with children. A media release was issued immediately following the show by Liz Hill Public Relations, Ltd., in Washington, D.C. My appearance on the show did not come as a surprise or anything new to the FVIR audience since I have been one of the few guest hosts that Tiokasin has relied on over the last few years. This was yet another chance for Tiokasin and me to share the microphone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tiokasin will remain FVIR's executive producer and will be no stranger to the show while he pursues his year away as full-time host. Liz Hill, who has produced several Native radio shows in various markets, including producing for FVIR, will also serve as one of the show's producers. Ms. Hill has worked as my publicist over much of the last year and brings her more than 30 years of experience in public relations and media to this valuable media resource.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will continue to produce and host my own show, “Let's Talk Native...with John Kane” (LTN) airing Sundays at 9-11 p.m. on ESPN Sports Radio WWKB- 1520 AM in Buffalo, N.Y. and streaming on-line everywhere (on the TuneIn app or at <a href="http://www.espn1520.com/pages/17325417.php?">http://www.espn1520.com/pages/17325417.php?</a>) and transition from my home on commercial radio to listener-supported radio of WBAI in New York each week. The shows will be distinct from one other with LTN maintaining its two hours of free-form style and its live, call-in talk radio format while FVIR will make efficient use of the one hour with a little more structure in one of the greatest media markets on the planet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">LTN will naturally continue to have a strong focus on Haudenosaunee issues but never shy away from Native issues from all over Turtle Island or Indigenous issues globally. Sovereignty, autonomy, distinction and identity will always be an undercurrent of “Let's Talk Native...”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“First Voices Indigenous Radio” will address Native and Indigenous peoples’ issues in a global context. Even as local and regional issues are tackled on the show and guests that will span the spectrum from activism to the arts and politics to other topics so, too, will there always be cognizance of the United Nations and the international community it represents just in the background. FVIR will continue to provide an opportunity to bring relevant Indigenous voices to the audiences of more than 40 radio markets and everywhere the Internet reaches for its live stream and archived shows access. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, the style and brand of radio that I bring will offer a new look and sound to FVIR. A Haudenosaunee and, dare I say it, Mohawk (Kanienkehaka) perspective will also be ever present. My direct, unscripted, leaving little to interpretation style will leave listeners knowing that Native voices and Native thoughts do more than just linger in the Plains and the Woodlands or in desolate little known corners of the globe, and that our voices matter and that our thoughts and concepts resonate far beyond lines drawn in the sand or on a map.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are already a listener of “First Voices Indigenous Radio” then you have likely heard me as a host. Please don't view me as a replacement or substitute for Tiokasin but rather as a brother carrying the torch for him for awhile. I'll likely shine the light in a few different places but know that we are both looking for and illuminating the same things. And when we finish this trip around the Sun, the light will be squarely back in the hands of the man who built this program.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are a listener of “Let's Talk Native...” and have never heard FVIR, check it out and start spreading the news. I am heading to New York each week. I have plenty to say there and I'll have plenty to say it with.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If two hours of LTN each week is too much for you then catch one hour of FVIR. If two hours of LTN on Sunday night leaves you wanting more, hang on till Thursday morning from 9-10. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Listen at <a href="http://www.wbai.org/">http://www.wbai.org/</a>. And check out the FVIR website at <a href="http://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/">http://firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/</a>. You will always find links and shows on my <a href="http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/">Native Pride blog</a> and on the “Let's Talk Native...with John Kane Facebook” group page.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/02/start-spreading-news.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-2277230937672145196Sat, 25 Jan 2014 05:35:00 +00002014-01-25T00:40:53.780-05:00John Kane Named Interim Host of “First Voices Indigenous Radio” at WBAI-FM in New York City<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">By Liz Hill</span></span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">(WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 23, 2014) –</span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">&nbsp;John Kane, Mohawk activist and national commentator on Native issues, has been named Interim Host of the long-running weekly one-hour radio program, “First Voices Indigenous Radio” (FVIR) at WBAI-FM 99.5 in New York City. Starting Thursday, Feb. 6, Kane will be filling in for one year for Host and Executive Producer Tiokasin Ghosthorse, who is taking a sabbatical from the show after 21 years (10 of those years at KAOS-FM in Olympia, Wash. and 11 years at WBAI). In recent years, Kane has regularly joined Ghosthorse as a guest and guest host.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rAeqVPSDGkI/UuNM5SLMUFI/AAAAAAAABqE/XBiGYKS3m0A/s1600/JK+in+NYC.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rAeqVPSDGkI/UuNM5SLMUFI/AAAAAAAABqE/XBiGYKS3m0A/s1600/JK+in+NYC.JPG" height="640" width="576" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;">"Tiokasin has been an absolute inspiration to me as I have pursued my work in radio and media in general,” said Kane. “‘First Voices Indigenous Radio’ will give me an opportunity to help bring a voice to Indigenous peoples’ issues beyond my passionate advocacy for my people and our struggles with New York State and the federal government.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;">“I’m totally confident that John Kane will be a great, active host for FVIR while I am away,” said Ghosthorse. “He understands the historical aspects and current policies being directed toward Native peoples. What FVIR needs is his candor and astute knowledge. It really is a great honor to welcome him here; and I am sure that the listeners in the New York City and tri-state area will be more than riveted with his knowledge and insights.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;">During the next year, Ghosthorse will be turning his attention to various causes that he’s become involved in over the years, including children’s organizations, and personal projects. He will retain his role as FVIR’s executive producer. “Indigenous peoples’ worldwide voices are strengthening and are being heard at this time of Mother Earth changes,” said Ghosthorse, who will also do occasional reporting.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.5pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;">"We were so blessed all these years by Tiokasin's generous spirit which has greatly benefited thousands of listeners and his colleagues here at the station," said Bob Hennelly, WBAI interim program director. "We look forward to working with John Kane in our shared mission of bringing ‘First&nbsp; Voices Indigenous Radio’ to an even wider audience and building on Tiokasin's inspired foundation."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;">“This is also an opportunity to bring an Indigenous voice to conversations we are not usually associated with,” says Kane. “WBAI broadcasting in the spotlight of the United Nations and from one of the media capitals of the world is certainly not missed by me, especially as Indigenous peoples’ issues gain more international attention. I look forward to working with Bob Hennelly and having Tiokasin rejoin us throughout the year."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">About “First Voices Indigenous Radio”</span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;">“First Voices Indigenous Radio,” which was the first Indigenous radio program in the northeastern U.S., has been airing on WBAI for 11 years. With more than 1 million online hits annually, the program has become known for bringing to the airwaves the experiences, perspectives and struggles of Indigenous peoples worldwide whose exclusion from mainstream, progressive and alternative media is deleterious to the whole of humanity. Past shows are available at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">www.firstvoicesindigenousradio.org</span></a>. FVIR has been re-broadcasted on 45 stations in 15 states in the the U.S. and one Canadian province, including: Colorado; Connecticut; Idaho; Illinois; Iowa; Maine; Massachusetts; Minnesota; New Hampshire; New York; Northwest Territories; Oregon; Pennsylvania; Tennessee; Vermont; and Washington.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;">About WBAI-FM</span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;">WBAI-FM, a member of the Pacifica chain,&nbsp; is listener-supported. It provides a vast array of original programming to listeners in the Metropolitan New York City region and worldwide on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wbai.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">www.wbai.org</span></a>. Pacifica was founded in 1949 by pacifist Lew Hill with the first listener-funded radio station, KPFA in Berkeley, Calif. WBAI began broadcasting in New York City in 1941 as WABF. It joined Pacifica in 1960. Today, Pacifica has five radio stations in Berkeley, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and more than 50 affiliate stations across the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span background:white="" color:black="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial="" mso-fareast-font-family:="" new="" roman="" serif="" style="font-family: &quot;;" times="">Liz Hill</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span background:white="" color:black="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial="" mso-fareast-font-family:="" new="" roman="" serif="" style="font-family: &quot;;" times="">Liz Hill Public Relations, Ltd.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span background:white="" color:black="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial="" mso-fareast-font-family:="" new="" roman="" serif="" style="font-family: &quot;;" times="">1514 17th Street, NW, #402</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span background:white="" color:black="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial="" mso-fareast-font-family:="" new="" roman="" serif="" style="font-family: &quot;;" times="">Washington, DC 20036</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span background:white="" color:black="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial="" mso-fareast-font-family:="" new="" roman="" serif="" style="font-family: &quot;;" times="">(202) 744-7629 (cell/work)</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span background:white="" color:black="" mso-bidi-font-family:arial="" mso-fareast-font-family:="" new="" roman="" serif="" style="font-family: &quot;; font-size: large;" times="">(202) 483-3609 (fax) <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><u><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;;"><a href="mailto:liz@lizhillpr.com"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">liz@lizhillpr.com</span></a></span></u><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"><br /></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/01/john-kane-named-interim-host-of-first.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-6896326798395806453Wed, 22 Jan 2014 04:58:00 +00002014-01-22T00:15:40.329-05:0030 Years and $33 Million<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iaur3VCdbik/Ut9PU0Y0vtI/AAAAAAAABp0/NCKBa5zoJDs/s1600/Frank+and+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iaur3VCdbik/Ut9PU0Y0vtI/AAAAAAAABp0/NCKBa5zoJDs/s1600/Frank+and+me.jpg" height="335" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conference Co-Chair Frank Ettawageshik and Unrecognized John Kane</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">It's not a prison sentence. It just feels like one. And I’m sure it feels the same to many others. It’s the cost for gaining “recognition” by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. And $33 million is what it cost the Shinnecock people. However, as exorbitant ­– and unbelievable – as this sounds they are actually the lucky ones because unlike most that file a petition for federal acknowledgement these guys actually got something out of it. In my opinion, it&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">wasn't</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;much but at least it was&nbsp;something.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After what is almost a lifetime for most Native people, the Shinnecock — who trace their origins back thousands of years on Long Island, New York — officially got recognized as "a tribe, band or nation of Indians under federal jurisdiction." Doesn't sound much like sovereignty when you hear the BIA's definition, does it? And since this new federal recognition only recognizes them as having existed since 1934, the Fed's position is that they can't add to their land base.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was all explained quite thoroughly at a conference hosted by Arizona State University's Indian Law Clinic on January 16 and 17. The conference, which was titled "Who Decides You're Real? Fixing the Federal Recognition Process," posed one question, identified a broken system and made some recommendations to fix it. But to me, it left many questions not only unasked but also clearly unanswered.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was invited to speak at this event. In fact, I was on the first panel and was given the enviable position of being the last panelist to speak during a presentation titled "Inherent Sovereignty." For me the subject is clear but in the context of a conference on gaining recognition as a tribe, band or nation of Indian subordinate to the laws and customs of the United States, the unasked and unanswered question is — how can these two coexist? Again, for me it is simple. They can't!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can check out my comments from the video of the conference at: <a href="http://mediasite.law.asu.edu/media/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?peid=824c4937ac504f03abf9fe96c2757d811d.">http://mediasite.law.asu.edu/media/SilverlightPlayer/Default.aspx?peid=824c4937ac504f03abf9fe96c2757d811d.</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are a few of my comments that brought home some of my main points:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Inherent sovereignty is a unique concept. Throughout the world, especially in the dominant European world, sovereignty was the biggest lie ever told. It was where “God” bestowed ruling authority upon a certain family — a crown. Biggest lie ever told."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"OUR sovereignty — our right to life and our freedom — is a product of Creation. When we do an opening [Ohenton Karihwatehkwen] in my homeland, in the territory of Haudenosaunee, we do a whole acknowledgement about relationships. We start by acknowledging the people, everybody who is here. We acknowledge the ground to the stars. We talk about relationships. The problem with the federal recognition process is it’s all about ONE relationship between a specific Native people and the Bureau of Indian Affairs."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I’m not recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I’m not a tribe, band or nation of Indians subordinate to the laws or customs of the U.S. There is no Mohawk Nation recognized by the BIA. There is the St. Regis Tribe. And they actually threw the word Mohawk in there not long ago, so they’re the St. Regis Tribe of Mohawks. But we’ve seen this happen to all of us. Now, it’s the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, the Seneca Nation of Indians, and the Tonawanda Band of Senecas. Somewhere along the line somebody drew a border right through Kanienkehaka territory. Part of this border is the St. Lawrence River but most of my people live on either side of this imaginary line. So the observation about the non-federally recognized people asserting more sovereignty than perhaps the federally recognized ones?&nbsp; I think we qualify for that because we don’t let that stop us.&nbsp; You will never see us apply. You will never see the Kanienkehaka submit a petition for federal recognition."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Now I understand the value of that [federal recognition]. And let’s face it. The 800-pound gorilla in the room is gaming — and federal funding. But we need to do more for each other. What’s missing in the declaration that will be presented later and signed [at this meeting] is trade and commerce among each other. We need to have THESE kinds of relationships with one another. THAT is the definition of sovereignty, of sustainability, and not what federal funding we can get or how many casinos we can operate. Now I’m not condemning gaming but let’s be clear — gaming is not possible because of IGRA. And it’s not possible because of Cabazon. It is possible because of sovereignty. All Cabazon did was to recognize what we already knew. Of course it paved the way for non-Native people to become our vendors and opened the door for state governments to get into our businesses. That’s what IGRA did. But it also opened the floodgates to a whole lot of people&nbsp;anxious to get a casino. Federal recognition is the pathway for that."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We need to start recognizing each other. When I talk about our Ohenton Karihwatehkwen­– that opening we do – we talk about relationships. But if we’re not talking about these relationships, and if all we’re talking about is a petition that ends up on the desk of someone at the BIA, we’d better start thinking about decolonizing our minds."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">After I finished, I received a standing ovation from the several hundred in the audience. The question-and-answer session that followed allowed me to make several other points that I simply&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">didn't</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;have time to address in my presentation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of those questions is worth mentioning here. I was asked for my opinion why a Kanienkehaka would not pursue federal recognition.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not skipping a beat, this is what I said:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">“Distinction is [at the heart of] the issue. The problem with the federal recognition process and what is recognized is that it changes the dynamics of a people, because once it is granted there seems to be this move toward more assimilation. There seems to be [the mindset of], “Let’s build something that looks and feels like the state or federal government,” whether it’s the regulatory systems [or something else]. It’s the issue of distinction and autonomy. Sovereignty&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">doesn't</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;mean that we&nbsp;DON’T have a relationship with the federal government. If someone receives federal funds, and then someone says, “Oh, you’re not sovereign because you receive federal funds,” then what does that say about, for example, Israel? What does that say about any other nation that the federal government throw a ton of money at? In the Mohawk language, the word we use for “treaty” is “we give up our land for peace.” Well, we didn’t just give it up for peace. There were some obligations made then. So when I sit here and hear commentary from a Justice Marshall that says we’re “wards of the state,” or that we’re “domestic dependent nations,” that&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;">doesn't</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">&nbsp;mean that we’re not&nbsp;sovereign. We are not wards of the state. It is not charity that comes into our territory. That’s obligation. That’s debt. We are creditors. But this federal recognition process and what happens when the federal government says “now we recognize you as a tribe, band or nation of Indians subordinate to OUR laws, that’s the biggest obstacle that I have toward it [federal recognition].”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I left many in Phoenix with plenty to think about as they traveled home to their territories. The reality is these issues need to be at the front of our minds here at home every day. Even as the officials from the U.S. and Canada blow smoke up our backsides about "tribal sovereignty," it is a lie. Their view of who we are is not <i>our</i> view and they cannot define us or claim us as <i>their</i> own. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are Ohnkwe Ohnwe — Real, Original, Human Beings. Forever.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 24.533334732055664px;"><a href="http://tworowtimes.com/opinions/columns/lets-talk-native/30-years-33-million/">http://tworowtimes.com/opinions/columns/lets-talk-native/30-years-33-million/</a></span>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/01/30-years-and-33-million.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-443595712909231015Wed, 15 Jan 2014 03:23:00 +00002014-01-14T22:23:57.173-05:00Back to Our Path is not a Trip Backward<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m4Z3xMY9WH4/UtX_NmfWJOI/AAAAAAAABpo/kxTgu6lI-bU/s1600/LightAtTheEndOfTheRoad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m4Z3xMY9WH4/UtX_NmfWJOI/AAAAAAAABpo/kxTgu6lI-bU/s640/LightAtTheEndOfTheRoad.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of us are familiar with our expression <i>Ohnkwe Ohnwe</i>. It is what we use to describe ourselves as the original people of Turtle Island. The approximate translation is “real human being, forever.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was never any question that we had a future. We were never tied to a spot on a timeline. We were never frozen in history. We were neither primitive nor at the end of our evolutionary scale. We continued to develop. The entire concept of <i>Seven Generations</i> was based on knowing that our growth and development would require a priority placed on the impacts on the unborn faces — those ones who would come long after us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But for all the certainty of those that have come long before us, our future would not be a sure thing, certainly not over the last two centuries and certainly not going forward from here. That path, so meticulously crafted by the tens of millions of feet of those that came before us, has been so neglected and deviated from that it is only Creation and our language that guide our feet back to it. But that course correction back to that great path, the <i>Kaianerehkowa</i>, is not a trip backwards or back in time. It is a trip forward, into the future. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ohnwe</span></i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> is forever. And forever is time in both directions past and future. Those from our past laid down the <i>Kaianerehkowa</i> so that we would know the path forward and keep it clear for those that would come after us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But that path has become overgrown and obscured by neglect. Part of clearing this way to our future involves starting with like minds with a common goal. And the only way to find them is through conversation and honest discourse. Utilizing the most basic concepts of the <i>Kaianerehkowa</i> is a start.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our fire symbolizes our family, our clans, our communities and our right and power to assemble for a council and for counsel. Like minds with a desire to take our path into the future must rekindle a fire. We need participation and genuine engagement from the people. However small these fires may be, they need to demonstrate a true return to the <i>Kaianerehkowa</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">None of this is about revolution or overthrow. It is about our people using what's ours to solve problems, address issues and move forward. We may not tackle every issue. But in the process of rekindling our fire and getting those willing to not only stand together in crisis or for a fight but also to sit together in council to build something and support each other so we can begin setting the example for what is truly our responsibility and our distinction.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead of individuals dictating their twisted views of our "customs and traditions" or asserting power granted to them through federal recognition or foreign powers, we need to begin the process of removing the dust and clutter from the path laid down by those that came long before us. Despite elected councils and titles or what some believe to be traditional councils, this is the path forward. It doesn't require burning band cards, stripping names from tribal roles, driving without licenses or crash courses in treaties. There is no silver bullet, magic potion or dream sequence that will lay a yellow brick road before us. We must begin the slow process of find our way back to a path forward, a path that respects and moves with nature and creation — the right path. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the absence of everyone speaking of our original languages and virtually nowhere that currently demonstrates a true use of the <i>Kaianerehkowa</i>, we need to utilize our most skilled language speakers to clarify much of what has been cluttered with bad translations and efforts to mischaracterize our history. Nowhere should our path forward defy nature or Creation. We need to acknowledge that while there is much that we have to learn and much we may never learn, that our best teacher is Creation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The path forward is not a trip backward. There is no need to reject the tools of today as we go forward. The key is discerning what moves us forward on <i>our </i>path and what leads us off it. Facebook and text messaging cannot replace physically coming together. The clan system cannot become a virtual thing. Communication may now travel at the speed of light but counseling takes time. So let us use the speed technology offers for sharing information and reaching out but let's still take the time to build the fire and gather.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Man's concept for power ebbs and flows. Might, the power to kill and destroy, and wealth, the accumulation of riches — these two desires have had and may still have their moments in history. But <i>Ohnkwe Ohnwe</i> are real human beings and we are forever. I'll take the path that considers seven generations above anyone's annual report or inventory of weaponry. Our power will be demonstrated in our fight for our future – for our <i>forever</i>.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/01/back-to-our-path-is-not-trip-backward.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-2629623522185131820Wed, 08 Jan 2014 04:54:00 +00002014-01-07T23:58:57.093-05:00Here We Go Again<div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5maa-7TI8Yg/UszZpJa8M0I/AAAAAAAABpY/4lbH4ujPwE4/s1600/Our+Mother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5maa-7TI8Yg/UszZpJa8M0I/AAAAAAAABpY/4lbH4ujPwE4/s1600/Our+Mother.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sorry, but I can't resist the temptation. As we rip open a new calendar I can't help but reflect on the past year and the one that is now before us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I won't attempt to list all those who completed their time with us in this last trip around our eldest Brother, the Sun.<span style="color: red;"> </span>We have had people close and intimate to us as well as people we admired from afar who now serve us only in our memories and in whatever form we may have them recorded.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had people rise up from obscurity and gain the spotlight. Some of them have shown genuine courage and integrity, while others walked on the faces, shoulders and necks of their own people past and present to promote themselves and their agendas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of us forged great new relationships and rekindled some old ones. Conversations were advanced. Issues were elevated. And while our impatience for significant change and solutions seem to be a constant ache, small signs of promise for change show themselves daily. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even in the absence of a coming-of-age ceremony, we have seen some of our young people stepping up and standing up to the challenges that generations have faced, some quite poorly and some against nearly insurmountable odds.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, there are our new ones, all those faces that have come to join us. New children, new grandchildren, generations removed from petty conflicts and feuds that have kept many of our people and territories from standing with each other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Creation had another tough year as it continued to be compromised for profit. Our land, water and air remain in jeopardy to those who only see value in terms of dollars and how quickly they can be extracted from our Mother. Our plants and medicines are being altered and affected at alarming rates, diminishing the value that the wisdom 10,000 years has placed within them. Our Cousins, the winged, four legged and no legs, continue to adapt as best they can while their habitats are destroyed yet all continuing to show us the same lessons taught to all those who came before us. But our Mother and Creation are not taking these offenses quietly. Climate change, severe weather, seismic events and major breaks in ecosystems demonstrated the planet's response.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year at this time a groundswell began. A movement, driven not by bold dominant leadership but simply by the people, captured the world's attention. The idea that many of those who never considered themselves activists would be Idle No More was powerful and encouraging but, unfortunately, that momentum would be squandered by distracting individual acts. Hunger striking on Victoria Island or wining and dining with the NFL in D.C. were great headlines for individuals but it was the participation of the tens of thousands that was significant last year.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So with one cycle completed what do we see for the next one before us?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, whether the people remain "Idle" or not; corporations, governments and our Mother will not. The planet will continue to lash out, not just at the culprits raping the earth, but at all of us. This is no longer a Native issue. We have proven our ability to survive crimes against humanity but who can survive the crimes against that, which sustains us all?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This year and every year until we turn back global exploitation — what "they" call the "global economy" — people will face the choice of siding with the planet or cashing it in. The "Revolution" isn't what we need; it is what we need to prevent. When the planet presses reset, that is when the revolt happens. And like a true revolution the planet will attempt a new beginning, with or without us. Many of us will not survive a revolution by the planet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our Mother and Creation will fix what we fail to correct. In fact, they will restore what we broke. Our role as Native people is to lead the charge so we are part of the solution rather than the obvious problem. We can’t do it alone, which is one of the things we must realize, and must convince those who are still too wary to join us.<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The challenge for us is to continue to resist the colonial subjugation while we defend our Mother. That resistance is, essentially, one and the same. We hear much debate about our people’s "sovereignty." This word, like many others we have added to our lexicon, must be defined. Much of the world defines sovereignty with almost an exclusive emphasis on authority and power. As our people began to own this word, it began as an expression of our rights and our freedom. Our sovereignty is our right to have independent or individual authority. It is our right to a freedom that predates European contact, Christian missionaries and the doctrine and dogma that came with them. That freedom is tied <u>not</u> to our "tribal governments" or "traditional councils" but to Creation. It is a birthright, the same as with all of Creation. Our sovereignty is not a collective right but a right we must defend collectively. Unfortunately, too many of our people have bought into "their" definition. The original meaning has become diluted and obscured.<span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our responsibility to the earth is like that sovereignty. The earth was not "given" to us from God, Jesus or "The Creator," like the Europeans believed and espoused. No one has been granted the right to pillage and plunder our Mother; and no one has been specifically charged with defending her either. If we believe the earth is an “every man for himself” proposition or that any of us can truly do right by ourselves, then we are pitiful creatures indeed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are all in this together. We need to rethink the world order — new or old. This is what this trip around our eldest Brother has laid before us.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 21px; line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://tworowtimes.com/opinions/columns/lets-talk-native/here-we-go-again/">http://tworowtimes.com/opinions/columns/lets-talk-native/here-we-go-again/</a></span></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2014/01/here-we-go-again.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1508436481250154585.post-710210571036609281Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:45:00 +00002013-12-31T19:45:43.189-05:00America's Greatest Public Execution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7F0yTIRkfU4/UsNk9EECjLI/AAAAAAAABpI/focHuhYkz04/s1600/Mass+Execution+of+38+Dakota+on+the+Dy+After+Christmas++By+John+Stevens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="353" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7F0yTIRkfU4/UsNk9EECjLI/AAAAAAAABpI/focHuhYkz04/s400/Mass+Execution+of+38+Dakota+on+the+Dy+After+Christmas++By+John+Stevens.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The story of the executions in Mankato, Minnesota that would be the final chapter of the Dakota War of 1862 seems to always miss the mark, at least for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thirty-eight Dakota men hanged the day after Christmas on an execution order signed by Abraham Lincoln has been characterized many ways even as this story, hidden from American history, began to gain attention leading up to the 150th anniversary last year. But, to be clear, most of this awareness is still only among a very small number of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But before I weigh in with my thoughts on the largest court/Presidential-ordered mass execution in the history of the United States, let's go back to last year.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last year, the much-celebrated "Lincoln" movie was all the rage. No, I’m not talking about the vampire slayer movie. I’m talking about the "real" Lincoln story, the one that took place during the same time period that this "Indian" problem occurred in Minnesota. Of course, nothing of the Dakota 38 or Mankato is in the film. Apparently the image of 38 Native men dangling at the end of a rope while the good people of Minnesota wrapped up their Christmas celebration with what was described even then as "America's greatest public execution" was not sensational enough for Hollywood.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And as the 150th anniversary of the hangings drew near and came and went, barely a murmur was heard in the mainstream national media. But mere days after the anniversary of this horrific event, the media flocked to the National Archives building in D.C. to cover the free special displaying of the Emancipation Proclamation, all part of the 150th anniversary of its signing. No one ever suggested or even hinted at the hypocrisy of Lincoln's hand laid on the Execution Order for the hangings on December 26, 1862 set against his "Proclamation" just six days later.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Scholars will fall and have fallen all over themselves debating the "Great Emancipator" but let's look at the “Great Executioner” and "America's greatest public execution."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The trials where almost 400 "Indians and Half-breeds" stood as enemy combatants in a military court resulted in 320 convictions with 303 sentenced to death by hanging. Those condemned to death were characterized as murderers and rapists, although the latter seems to have been a gross exaggeration if not a complete fabrication. The trials lasted only a week with many individuals before the court for just 5 minutes. No defense was presented, no counsel provided and almost all were convicted on the word of a single accuser.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the decade leading up to the Dakota War of 1862, the United States refused to make on time or appropriate payments for lands that were continuously encroached upon or otherwise swindled through treaties, congressional acts or outright theft. This was not a failure of U.S. policy. This WAS the U.S. policy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sixty years before the Dakota executions, it was Thomas Jefferson who not only laid the groundwork for the removal policies with the so called "Louisiana Purchase" — a scam sold to the Southern states as a place to “remove” the "Indians" to — but also actually encouraged running Native people into debt to further destroy them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thirty years before the executions, it was Andrew Jackson who fulfilled Jefferson's promise and drove thousands of Native people to their deaths in the forced marches of the Trail of Tears. Payments for the theft of Cherokee land would come years after the death marches. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was now Lincoln's turn. The removal policy of Jefferson and Jackson combined with Jefferson's debt-to-destruction plan was perfect for the time. Disregard for timely payments and delivery of food to the Dakota exacerbated the tensions that exploded in 1862. Traders preyed on the slow-to-pay practice of the "Indian Agents" and had the Dakota so far in debt that the traders cheated them in their trades and ultimately managed direct payments from the agents so that no money ever made it to the Native people themselves and in many cases no goods either. Food distributions that were bound by treaty either never came or came spoiled and rancid.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Displaced and starving, the Dakota finally lashed out in the summer of 1862. The Dakota spent the next several months attempting to drive the White settlers from the Minnesota River valley. Lincoln would make claims that 800 men, women and children were killed in the conflict, although no official record backs up that claim.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many of the websites and publications addressing this issue including those hosted or produced by Native organizations, suggest that Lincoln intervened in the death sentences and reviewed the trial records. Lincoln's role here is often described as humanitarian. The fact was that Lincoln was required to issue the execution orders but was more concerned about perception, domestic and abroad. He ordered the records of the proceeding with a plan to only execute those convicted of murder combined with rape to avoid the international fallout of an execution order for 303 human beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Disappointed to learn that the rape claims were wildly exaggerated and that only two were convicted of the combined rape and murder charges and knowing he needed to give the good people of Minnesota more than just a double hanging, he persisted. By using his own standard for distinguishing a massacre from a battle, Lincoln then was able to bump the number up to 39, ordering their executions for participating in massacres. One of these would join the remainder of the 303 originally sentenced to death and the others convicted of lesser crimes, avoiding the gallows but still to only die in prison anyway. In total, more than 1,000 Dakota were imprisoned.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Most would never see a trial. Those who did not die in prison were expelled to Nebraska and South Dakota to live on the concentration camps called reservations. The Dakota claims to Minnesota lands would be abolished by the U.S. Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The next 30 years would see, most notably, the Sand Creek Massacre (1864), the failed attempted massacre by Custer at the Little Bighorn (1876) and the Wounded Knee Massacre, which occurred 123 years ago on December 29, 1890. This event took place 28 years to the week after Abraham Lincoln signed the Execution Order for the "America's greatest public execution" and the Emancipation Proclamation.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By 1890 the Native population of California had been reduced from an estimated 300,000 (in 1850) to 15,000. This 95 percent "reduction" was not the result of disease or natural disaster. It was U.S. policy. It was not a U.S. failure. It was a U.S. success story. While Lincoln "proclaimed" the freedom of the Black man as a strategy to cause slave revolts in the South, Native boys and girls were being bought and sold to the West. Boys were bringing $60 for slave labor while girls were getting $100 and more as sex slaves. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The next 100 years would see residential schools where Native identity and lives of our children would be snuffed out in the policy of "Kill the Indian and Save the Man." Some schools would show a 50 percent mortality rate. These schools would be the beginning of the "Indian" child market that continues today in the foster care and adoption programs of the U.S. and Canada. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So don't for a second think that the Dakota War or the executions at Mankato were failures of American justice or policy. Don't think for a second that “Honest Abe” was just in a tough spot in 1862 but emerged as an American hero. Lincoln did what they all did, all the US Presidents — he lived up to the name <i>Rahnatakaias</i>, “Town Destroyer<i>.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/2013/12/americas-greatest-public-execution.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (John Kane)1